This Is How We Tried To Love
by poetzproblem
Summary: She thinks her favorite moments might just be walking along the streets in the quieter neighborhoods with Rachel's hand tucked into her elbow as they talk about frivolous things. Quinn can't remember them ever having a conversation in high school that wasn't weighted with deeper meaning. "No one's fated or doomed to love anyone."
1. The Accidents Happen

**Author's Note: **A three part story. Alternate Season 4, breaking from canon after 4:04, _The Break-Up. _This one was inspired by lrbcn. Sorry it took so long to write. Happy Valentine's Day.

Thanks and cyber-hugs to Skywarrior108 for being an awesome beta.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own _Glee_ or the characters - if I did it would have ended after season 3 - I just like to play with them…strictly non-profit.

* * *

**This Is How We Tried To Love**

_This we were, this is how we tried to love,  
__and these are the forces they had ranged against us,  
__and these are the forces we had ranged within us,  
__within us and against us, against us and within us.  
__~Adrienne Rich, Twenty One Love Poems, XVII_

* * *

**Part I: The Accidents Happen**

* * *

It's the third week of October before Quinn Fabray finally makes use of that Metro North pass that she'd gone to all the trouble (and expense) of purchasing back in June. The fact that she's using hers before Rachel is not lost on her—it's always been this way. Rachel Berry says jump, and Quinn's traitorous legs automatically react, even as her brain screams at them to just walk away. Rachel is a force of nature, storming through life with an unchangeable course plotted and completely oblivious to anyone who steps into her path to be swept up, blown away, or left shaken and shivering out in the cold.

Quinn sighs, rubbing at her temple and attempting to shake off the uncharitable comparison. She and Rachel are friends now, more or less—maybe less than she'd expected or hoped for. There have been texts and emails, a few phone calls, and even a singular Skype session, but they've been brief and shallow and so very easy to forget once Quinn puts away her phone or turns off her computer. She actually prefers it that way.

She's happy at Yale. It's exactly the fresh start that she wanted. She's having fun, making friends, and dating again, but it's free of expectations and any deep emotional investment. She'll leave the dreams of fairy tale love to girls like Rachel—girls that pine for idiots who don't call them for four months and insist that they aren't broken up with said idiots when they very obviously _are_ and yet still somehow manage to catch the interest of another guy without even trying.

Girls like that.

In Rachel's world, she and Finn have been officially over for two weeks—although by Quinn's count, it's been five months, one week, and two days—and Quinn can't quite get a read on Rachel's mood this time. Back in June, Rachel had done more than her fair share of crying, clinging to the hope that Finn would change his mind right up until the moment that he left for basic training in Georgia. She'd finally taken off the engagement ring a week later. Quinn has been catching little glimpses of Rachel's changing emotions for months, from devastation to anger to denial, but in the last two weeks, her brief interactions with Rachel have been strangely calm. It was only during their last phone call—the first actual verbal conversation that they'd had in more than a month—that Rachel casually (or not so casually) suggested that Quinn should come visit her this weekend.

Quinn has a paper due on Tuesday that she really should be finishing, and she'd had tentative plans to meet for coffee on Saturday morning with one of the cute, youngish, non-tenured professors in the psychology department that she'd met at a clambake a few weeks ago, but somehow she's here on a train to New York. She blames it on those passes that she'd stupidly bought with her own savings and the lingering frugality that she'd acquired during the months when she didn't have a home to call her own. She knows that's only a small part of why she's here—the bigger part is Rachel. Always Rachel.

She's not completely oblivious to her own feelings. Quinn can admit that she's been nursing a little crush on Rachel for a while now. Their high school drama notwithstanding, Rachel is one of the few people to consistently reassure Quinn that she's a good person—one with value and worth that extends beyond her appearance and transcends the monumental mistakes that she's made. So yes, she spent several weeks last winter lamenting the fact that Rachel Berry was determined to tie herself in marriage to Finn Hudson, of all people, at the tender age of seventeen, and that Quinn would never even have a chance to explore her suddenly-not-so-clearly-defined sexuality with Rachel, but she's mostly over it now. The fact that she doesn't have to see Rachel everyday is certainly helping her to move on.

Quinn is pulled from her thoughts by the squealing of the wheels against the metal rails as the brakes slow the train to a crawl along that last quarter-mile into Grand Central Terminal, and her heart rate picks up. She hasn't been to New York in more than a year, and she can't deny that she's a little nervous about the sheer size of the city. She fishes out her cell phone and types a quick text to Rachel, hitting send as she chews on her lower lip. The device buzzes in her hand almost immediately, and she glances down to see: _**Already at the gate. Can't wait to see you. :) ~R**_

She smiles to herself at the fact that Rachel's only concession to 'text-speak' is dropping her pronouns and signing her name with an initial. She's oddly comforted to know that, despite all the dramatic changes that Rachel has made in the last few months, there are some things that will never change.

The train jerks to its final stop and Quinn watches in amusement as everyone around her jumps up from their seats and begins to juggle their luggage in a fight to get off the train as quickly as possible. She stays seated, sinking as far back as she can so that the woman next to her can maneuver out. Once the aisle is relatively clear, Quinn stands, stretching her stiff back and legs as well as she can before she reaches for the bag she'd tossed up onto the luggage rack. Slinging it over her shoulder, she shuffles through the car and down the steps, sliding into the crowd of commuters and tourists as she makes her way off the platform.

She glances around the busy terminal as she walks, looking for Rachel, and she immediately catches a blur of black and white and brown heading straight for her with a wide smile. Quinn only has a few seconds to register the sight of impossibly short shorts and a skintight shirt—and Jesus, are those Go-Go boots?—before she has all five feet and two inches of Rachel Berry pressed against her body.

"Quinn," Rachel squeals excitedly, wrapping her arms around Quinn's shoulders and squeezing tightly. Quinn is thrown off balance for a moment, but then she's holding onto Rachel's waist and fitting her chin into the curve of Rachel's shoulder and inhaling the faint scent of honeysuckle. Everything comes rushing back in those ten seconds, and Quinn sighs, silently admitting that she hasn't moved on from her crush nearly as well as she'd believed.

"Hi," she breathes, willing her muscles to relax. She drops her arms and steps back to place some much-needed distance between them. Rachel is still smiling and bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. Quinn's eyes dart down the length of her body, and _yes_—there are black, (faux?) leather high-heel boots encasing her calves. Her thighs are on full display between the tops of the boots and the end of the barely-there shorts. The sight of those legs is undeniably enticing, but Quinn suddenly feels as though she's stepped into some alternate universe where Rachel Berry has decided to go into the escort business instead of pursuing her Broadway dreams, and she frowns. "You look different."

Rachel's smile widens, and she nods. "I told you I had a makeover." She spins in a perfect circle, showing off her new look from all angles. "What do you think?"

_I think you look like Santana and Puckerman's sexed-up lovechild who's turning tricks on the side_, Quinn wants to say, but she bites into her tongue to keep the words from spilling out. That one Skype call hadn't prepared Quinn for this version of Rachel, and she can't honestly claim to like it. She'd liked the _old_ Rachel.

As it happens, Quinn doesn't actually have to say anything because her silence gets the message across loud and clear. Rachel's eyes dim, and her smile falls away in increments until she looks ready to cry. "You hate it," she whispers brokenly.

Quinn hisses out a breath from between her teeth. "I don't hate it," she lies, plastering on a fake smile. "I just need some time to get used to it. I mean, with the hair," she unconsciously gestures to her own longer blonde locks, "and the makeup, and the clothes, and just…everything," she finishes lamely.

Rachel watches her with wide eyes, visibly swallowing and nodding her head ever-so-slightly. She reaches up with her left hand and begins to self-consciously twist her hair around her fingers. "I…I wanted a fresh start. A new me," she explains timidly.

Quinn feels her stomach sink unpleasantly, and she lets her gaze wander over Rachel again. She supposes that the outfit is stylish enough, even if it isn't something that Quinn would ever think of wearing herself, and Rachel doesn't really look _bad_—actually she looks gorgeous and sexy—she just doesn't look like _Rachel_ anymore. Quinn feels as if she's lost something that she never even had, and it kind of makes her want to cry.

She swallows down the bitter pill of disappointment, forcing her lips into a trembling smile. "You look beautiful," she murmurs, and the truth of her feelings seep into the words, coloring her voice with enough sincerity to make Rachel believe. Those dull, brown eyes begin to sparkle once again, and Rachel's lips curve into a shy smile.

"Thank you , Quinn," she says, and Quinn can almost feel the feather-light caress of those eyes roaming over her face. Rachel's grin suddenly widens. "Your hair has gotten so long," she comments.

Quinn rolls her eyes dismissively. "I keep forgetting to make an appointment."

"Well, I like it. You look lovely."

Quinn can feel her cheeks heat, and she glances away, letting the buzz of Grand Central Terminal distract her from the warmth of her skin. She's been on a train for nearly two hours, and she isn't exactly as fresh as a daisy, but Rachel has a knack for making her feel beautiful even when she knows she's at her worst. Shaking her head, Quinn looks back at Rachel with a smirk. "So are you going to show me this amazing apartment of yours or what?"

That's all it takes to reignite all of Rachel's enthusiasm until she's practically vibrating with energy again. She reaches out to tuck her arm under Quinn's elbow, gently guiding her into motion. "You're going to love it. Well, maybe you won't _love_ it love it, but I certainly hope you'll like it. Kurt and I have really fixed it up. Oh," she stops, glancing over at Quinn with a small frown, "we'll need to take the subway to get there. Or find a taxi. You'd probably prefer the taxi," she nods, starting to change direction.

Quinn laughs and stands her ground, pulling Rachel back with their linked arms. "The subway is fine, Rachel. Lead the way."

Rachel smiles and nods again, launching right back into her endless chatter about the converted warehouse, the affordable rent, and Brooklyn. Quinn allows the musical cadence of Rachel's voice to wash over her and hopes that she'll make it through the weekend with minimum damage to her newly found peace of mind. She's already struggling to keep her emotional distance.

Rachel doesn't stop touching her as they walk through the terminal. She only lets go of Quinn when they reach the subway, and then only to swipe her metro card, gallantly signaling for Quinn to go through the turnstile. Quinn hesitates, wanting to pay her own way until Rachel reminds her, "You bought us train tickets, Quinn. The least I can do is pay your subway fare." Quinn doesn't have an argument, so she mumbles her thanks and steps through to wait for Rachel.

They take the 4 train, but Rachel warns her that they'll have to transfer at Union Square. The train is crowded with people of every shape, color, and style—business suits and dresses, ripped jeans and tee-shirts, designer clothes and tattered hand-me-downs—and Quinn feels conspicuous in her inconspicuousness. There aren't any seats available when they board, but Rachel promises it's a fairly short ride. "If you feel the need to sit, I'm certain that I can persuade someone to accommodate you," Rachel offers, glancing around the car with calculating eyes.

Quinn purses her lips, puffing out an annoyed breath through her nose. She knows Rachel means well, but Quinn really does wish that everyone would just forget about her accident the way she has—well, for the most part. "I'm fine, Rach," she promises, and Rachel smiles in relief, reaching for the overhead bar. Quinn does the same, bracing her legs for the train to lurch into motion. She watches the concrete and metal outside begin to speed past in a blur.

When the train stops at Union Square, Rachel grabs onto Quinn's hand and doesn't let go as she leads her through the crowd toward the platform to wait for their transfer. The L train is just as crowded, and this time Rachel doesn't even ask before she practically strong-arms a seat for Quinn, citing her recent recovery from a spinal injury to plead her case. Quinn ducks her head in embarrassment and wishes that she could sink into the floor of the train, but when a gentleman smiles at her and offers his seat, she feels compelled to take it.

Rachel stands guard over her, providing Quinn with a perfect view of her breasts encased in that tight, white shirt. Quinn can see the faint outline of her bra, and as grateful as she is that Rachel is even wearing one, she prays that the subway ride will be a short one. It isn't, and for the next twenty minutes, Quinn does her best to avert her eyes from inappropriate places until Rachel finally leans down to tell her, "Our stop is next."

The train jerks, and Rachel is thrown off balance, tipping forward into Quinn. Quinn makes the mistake of reaching out to catch her, but she ends up with her arms around Rachel's waist while Rachel nearly straddles her thighs with her chest pressed awkwardly into Quinn's shoulder and her face buried in Quinn's hair. Quinn hisses at the contact, and Rachel squeaks, scrambling to right herself and muttering apologies. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry, Quinn. Did I hurt you?"

"No," Quinn mutters, "no, I'm fine. It's okay, Rachel," she grits out, keeping her hands on Rachel's waist to hold her steady. Rachel sheepishly smiles down at her, covering her hands and patting them gratefully as she regains her balance. When she lets go, she makes sure to have a firm grip on the overhead railing until the train glides to a final stop. Quinn reluctantly drops her own hands into her lap.

Rachel makes a grab for Quinn's bag, shouldering it while Quinn protests and leading her out onto the platform at DeKalb Avenue. She tucks her arm back into Quinn's elbow as she guides her away from the other debarking passengers and out along the sidewalk. Rachel's apartment is several blocks from the station, and Quinn happily follows Rachel as she takes in her first glimpse of Bushwick. Rachel watches her glance around at the scenery, and she smiles almost apologetically. "I know it's not the heart of Manhattan, but it's a pretty nice neighborhood, all things considered."

"Do you make this commute everyday?" Quinn asks, suddenly realizing that the NYADA campus is somewhere in Midtown and this is one hell of a trek. Of course, she might be spoiled by her own compact campus where she can roll out of bed thirty minutes before class and still have time to shower and grab a bagel without worrying about being late.

Rachel shrugs a little. "It obviously isn't ideal to live so far from campus, but Kurt is a much better roommate than the one I had previously. Anyway, I've already decided to devote a chapter of my future memoir to the interesting people that I've met on the subway."

Quinn grimaces, envisioning Rachel cozying up to some mugger or rapist with one of her wide, welcoming smiles. "Just be careful."

"I always am, Quinn," Rachel swears with a reassuring smile, "and Kurt and I try to travel together whenever possible."

Quinn isn't entirely comforted by the revelation, since she's pretty sure that Becky Jackson could beat Kurt up with one hand tied behind her back, but she nods indulgently and silently vows to start checking in with Rachel more often—just to ease her mind.

When they reach the apartment, which is really just a glorified warehouse, Rachel happily gives her a (very brief) tour, and Quinn pastes a smile on her face as she eyes the place warily. It's big, she'll give them that, but the shabby brick walls and battered wooden floors don't much impress her, and the place feels about ten degrees cooler than the autumn air outside. She hopes it's because they haven't turned on the heat yet, or they'll be in for an uncomfortably cold winter. "It's nice," she mutters, attempting to act sincere. She doesn't want a repeat of earlier—she hates seeing Rachel upset.

Rachel beams proudly at the small compliment, and Quinn realizes that it doesn't really matter if this isn't somewhere that she could see herself living, because it's the place that Rachel and Kurt have made into a home for themselves. She supposes that she's a little a proud of them for that. The decor and the furniture are pretty sparse, but she can tell that Rachel and Kurt have done their best to make it appear shabby chic.

"Make yourself at home," Rachel instructs, ever the good hostess.

She deposits Quinn's bag on the floor of one of the makeshift bedrooms, and Quinn frowns, taking in the ugly green curtains that are meant to serve as both a wall and a door. She wonders if that's where she'll be sleeping, and then she realizes that there are only two beds in the apartment, a really uncomfortable looking futon, and a lot of hard, empty floor space. She has no intention of sleeping on the floor or the couch—her body might be mostly healed, but her back will never forgive her if she deprives it of a mattress—so she'll either be kicking someone out of their bed or sharing it, and she's not sure that she's comfortable with either option. Warmth prickles over her skin when her mind involuntarily conjures up the image of sleeping next to Rachel. Thankfully, her imagination takes pity on her by keeping Rachel in flannel, heart-covered pajamas instead of slinky lingerie.

She sinks onto the (yes, very uncomfortable) futon, smoothly crossing her legs and exhaling on a long breath. "Can I get you anything?" Rachel calls over. "Water? Iced tea?"

"Water is fine," Quinn answers absently. "So where's Kurt anyway?" she asks, hoping for a distraction from the awkward reality of being alone with Rachel in her apartment with no one to act as a buffer.

Rachel crosses the room, handing Quinn a bottle of water before sitting down next to her on the futon. "He went to the market to pick up a few supplies. We've kind of been living on oatmeal, rice, and noodles," she admits with a sheepish grin.

"That doesn't sound very healthy," Quinn comments.

"But it is very cost effective."

Quinn nods in sympathy, twisting the cap of her bottle and taking a sip. Yale isn't exactly doing any favors for her savings account or her mother's, but it's so worth the price. She suspects that Rachel and Kurt feel the same about New York.

They chat for a while about safe topics—all the mundane college things like classes and dorms and roommates. Rachel doesn't mention Finn or that Brody guy, and Quinn doesn't mention any of the arm candy that she's been sampling.

When Kurt eventually breezes in, his arms are full of two big, brown paper bags. "Honey, I'm home," he calls out playfully, and Rachel rushes to meet him, relieving him of half his burden. Quinn watches their comfortable interaction, thinking they'd be the perfect couple if Kurt was straight. He'd even dated Blaine, who was pretty much Rachel's male equivalent.

Kurt's gaze finds Quinn as she pushes herself up from the futon, and he smiles widely. "Rachel, darling, we seem to have acquired a very attractive blonde person to class up our humble abode."

Quinn laughs in response, accepting Kurt's one-armed hug and the brief kiss he places on her cheek. "You look amazing," he coos.

"You don't look so bad yourself," and it's true. Kurt has an added aura of maturity and sophistication surrounding him that wasn't present just a few short months ago. He hasn't changed nearly as much as Rachel, but it's clear that he's quickly leaving his teenage awkwardness behind. "How are you?" she asks gently, conscious of the fact that he's dealing with his own breakup, or break, or whatever is going on with him and Blaine.

The sparkle in his blue eyes dims slightly, and he shrugs. "As well as can be expected." Then he smiles—though it's tight around the edges—and says, "Now tell me all about Yale. Have you already managed to accumulate a legion of admirers to worship you?"

Quinn recognizes the slightly patronizing question as an attempt to move the conversation away from his relationship troubles, so she shrugs off her mild annoyance and begins to tell him a little about Yale. Rachel sets the bag on the kitchen table and begins to unpack the groceries, chirping in on the conversation even though Quinn has already told her some of what she's sharing with Kurt.

Apparently, the plan is to cook Quinn dinner. She immediately tells them it isn't necessary, but they both insist that they're feeding her, so she offers to help—more a means of self-preservation than politeness since she honestly doesn't remember either of them ever being able to actually cook. "Don't be ridiculous, Quinn," Rachel chides, gently pushing Quinn down into a chair. "You're our guest."

Quinn shakes her head and chuckles, again watching them dance around one another in perfect domestic choreography as they chop vegetables and boil pasta. "So what's on the menu?"

"Vegetarian angel hair primavera with a side salad," Rachel tells her matter-of-factly with her back turned to Quinn as she rinses off the lettuce.

Quinn knows that she failed to keep her face from betraying her misgivings when Kurt stifles an unattractive snort of laughter. "Don't worry, Quinn, it's completely edible," he assures her with a grin. "I'm in charge of the sauce, and Rachel will be restricted to salad duty."

"Hey," Rachel huffs, turning around to glare at them both, "there's nothing wrong with my cooking," she defends.

"If you like all your food well-done to the point of being charred," Kurt quips, winking at Quinn, who does her best to suppress a giggle.

"One time," Rachel argues, waving her knife around. "It happened one time."

Kurt chuckles. "One time too many. It took me three days to scrub the scorch marks off the wall," he tells Quinn with a shake of his head. "Needless to say, Rachel isn't allowed near the oven unsupervised."

Scowling, Rachel picks up a piece of cucumber and flings it at Kurt—at least, Quinn assumes it's aimed at Kurt since it actually sails wide to the right and lands harmlessly in the middle of the floor. Quinn and Kurt both dissolve into breathless giggles. Rachel harrumphs indignantly, turning her back on both of them as she resumes chopping up the salad with vigor bordering on violence.

"Wait," Quinn says when her laughter eventually ebbs, "vegetarian? I thought you were vegan."

Rachel's hand pauses and glances over her shoulder with a sheepish grin. "Unfortunately for my convictions, maintaining an affordable vegan lifestyle in New York isn't really feasible at this point, so I've made some minor compromises."

"She fell off the wagon with cheese and couldn't go back," Kurt tattles. Rachel gives him a shove and goes back to her task.

They fall into comfortable small talk, and Rachel is all smiles again. Quinn does manage to convince them to let her set the table after she asks them where their plates and silverware are hidden. Rachel places the salad on the table and begins filling the plates with a generous serving of pasta. Quinn has to admit that it smells delicious, and her stomach growls in agreement, reminding her that she hasn't eaten anything since breakfast.

Kurt sprints into one of the bedrooms and reappears with a bottle of wine that he uncorks with a flourish. Quinn eyes him suspiciously, asking, "How did you manage to get that?"

He grins slyly as he pours her a glass. "I have connections."

Rachel laughs and slaps his arm, turning to Quinn with twinkling eyes. "There's a guy at the magazine who's trying to woo him, and Kurt has been unfairly using that to his advantage."

"Says the girl who had an upperclassman bringing her bouquets of roses and bottles of wine," Kurt counters with an indulgent roll of his eyes. Rachel's smile droops, and she glances down into her glass. Kurt sighs dramatically, obviously regretful of causing the shift in mood. "In any case, we have somehow managed to acquire a nice little wine collection in a short amount of time."

He lifts his glass into the air. "To old friends and new experiences," he toasts. Quinn's gaze remains on Rachel as she lifts her own glass and touches it to Kurt's, silently echoing the sentiment. Rachel smiles back at her, although it doesn't quite reach her eyes, and adds in her glass.

The rest of dinner passes without venturing back into taboo topics like Finn Hudson, Blaine Warbler, or Rachel's new potential leading man, and Quinn is pleasantly surprised to discover that she actually likes vegetarian primavera. She even asks Kurt for his recipe, which makes him preen and makes Rachel start in on a lecture the benefits of converting to a meat-free lifestyle.

Sometime after midnight, Kurt bids Rachel and Quinn goodnight, claiming to need his beauty sleep. He actually has to go into work on Saturday. Well, he doesn't _have_ to, but because his boss apparently adores him, she's invited him to go watch a photo shoot at a private mansion in upstate New York that's meant to spotlight a hot new designer. Kurt absolutely couldn't say _no_. Quinn kind of wonders if his daylong absence is part of the reason that Rachel issued the sudden invitation to visit. As far as she knows, Rachel hasn't spent a single day alone in the apartment or the city since Kurt moved here.

It bothers Quinn that she might be nothing more than a backup plan for Rachel—a perpetual second choice—when some stubborn part of her heart keeps wanting to be put first, but she broods in silence. She doesn't want Rachel to prove her right.

Rachel seems to notice Quinn's somber mood, and her face shifts into an all-too-familiar expression of worry colored with the tiniest hint of fear (and Quinn hates this particular look so much because it reminds her of a time when Rachel had every reason to fear Quinn) as she hesitantly asks if anything is wrong.

"Just tired," Quinn says with a shrug.

Rachel's expression slides from worry to guilt in the blink of an eye. "Oh, of course you are. You had classes this morning, and then all that time spent traveling, and Kurt and I have kept you up talking. Why didn't you say something sooner?" she demands.

"Because I was having fun," Quinn answers honestly, but there's no denying that the day caught up with her at least an hour ago.

"We'll have more fun tomorrow," Rachel promises, reaching out to take Quinn's hand and tugging her up from the futon. "It's late, and we're going to bed."

Quinn's stomach dips and twists. She knows Rachel doesn't mean those words to be anything but platonic, but they still conjure up less than innocent images in Quinn's mind. Even after she forces them away, she's still left with the tempting reality of sleeping in Rachel's bed. Or, "Does this futon actually fold down?"

Rachel cuts her an appalled look. "Don't be ridiculous, Quinn. No guest of mine is going to sleep on the couch."

"But…"

"No," Rachel insists, pulling Quinn into her bedroom. "Besides, it only folds halfway down. Kurt actually found it on the sidewalk in someone's garbage pile."

"Ew…and you didn't tell me this before I sat on it," Quinn screeches, cringing. Her skin suddenly feels like a hundred little bugs are crawling all over her.

"We scrubbed it down with a gallon of disinfectant and had the cushions professionally cleaned," Rachel assures her, eyeing her strangely as she scratches at random parts of her body.

"I'm using your shower," Quinn decides, picking up her bag.

"But the pipes rattle. You'll wake up Kurt."

Quinn arches an eyebrow and stares Rachel down. She just spent several hours on a secondhand—or thirdhand (God, who even knows!)—futon after being crammed on subway trains with sweaty, smelly strangers for close to an hour. She's damn well going to wash the grime off and be thankful for it, especially if it keeps her from having to lie down next to Rachel on that not-nearly-wide-enough bed for a little bit longer.

Rachel's gaze wavers and she sighs, "I suppose Kurt will understand."

Ten minutes later, Quinn finds herself feeling a little bad about Kurt because Rachel wasn't kidding about the pipes. At least the noise helps distract her from over-thinking the sleeping arrangements, and the bathroom itself is pristine, even if the small space is close to overflowing with the combination of _His and Hers_ personal products.

Quinn takes her time in the shower, letting the (mostly) hot water cascade over her weary body. When she's finished, she meticulously dries her skin and her hair. She brushes her teeth. She pulls on flannel pajama bottoms and an oversized sweatshirt. She takes a fortifying breath and quietly pads back to the bedroom, hoping that Rachel is already asleep.

The lamp casts a soft glow over the bed, and Quinn pauses. Rachel is tucked under the covers with her hands folded demurely over her belly, and her dark hair spreads out in a silky halo over the pillow. She's still awake enough to grace Quinn with a sleepy smile, and for one indulgent moment, Quinn imagines what it would be like to see this every night—to be able to slide into bed and curl into Rachel's body like a lover would. She catches her breath and shakes off the silly notion, slipping onto the mattress at a respectable distance.

Rachel shifts beside her, turning off the light and pitching the room into darkness. "Goodnight, Quinn," she whispers.

"'Night, Rach," Quinn returns into the stillness.

It's a long time before sleep finally claims her.

_xx_

When Quinn wakes up, it's to the sound of the pipes rattling, and she can hear the water running in the shower. She rolls over, expecting to find an empty bed but instead practically rolls on top of Rachel, who at some point during the night managed to sprawl into Quinn's space and come dangerously close to spooning her. Rachel grunts at the contact, and Quinn shifts away quickly, muttering an awkward apology.

Rachel's eyes pop open and grow immediately wide, and she shuffles back across the mattress, untangling a hand from beneath the sheet and running it self-consciously through her hair. "Umm…I…I'll go put the coffee on," she mumbles, scrambling out of bed and scurrying out of the room, but not before she manages to flash Quinn with a glimpse of impossibly long, toned, tan legs and a pair of flimsy sleep shorts that cover next to nothing.

Quinn collapses back against the mattress, staring at the open ceiling and willing the ugly scenery to replace the very vivid picture of those legs and the fantasy of them wrapped around her. A frustrated groan slips out, and she eventually forces her body out of bed.

She chances a peek in the mirror and frowns, instantly diving for her brush. When she finally deems herself presentable and emerges from the bedroom, a fresh looking Kurt is chewing on a piece of toast. The pipes rattle to life, and Quinn realizes that Rachel has hopped into the shower. She shakes her head and stifles a grin. "Doesn't that get annoying?" she asks Kurt, slipping into the kitchen and tipping the coffee pot into the empty mug that someone conveniently left on the counter.

"Very, but at least we'll never accidentally walk in on one another in the shower," he comments optimistically. Quinn chuckles into her mug.

Kurt glances at his watch with a frown and gulps down the rest of his coffee. "I really have to get going," he says, depositing his mug in the sink before grabbing his jacket and bag. "I'm not sure what time I'll be back tonight. It may be late."

"No problem," Quinn tells him. "Have fun today."

He flashes a wide smile. "Oh, I will. You, too. Please don't let Rachel drag you all over the city without asking you what you want to do," he instructs on his way to the door. "You know how she can be."

She nods, laughing, "Don't worry. I know how to handle Rachel Berry."

An odd expression flits over his face, and he hums thoughtfully. "Have a wonderful day, Quinn," he tells her before he's on his way.

Quinn finishes her coffee, waiting for Rachel to be done in the bathroom. It takes longer than she anticipates, and honestly, by the time the door finally opens and a robe-clad Rachel comes strolling out, Quinn is wishing that she'd held off on the morning drink. She ignores Rachel's surprised squeak as she races past her to answer nature's call.

Feeling markedly better, Quinn freshens up, brushing her teeth and putting on her makeup before she heads back into the bedroom to get dressed. Rachel's already beaten her to that and is seated at the kitchen table with her own coffee and toast, reading the paper. Quinn is mildly surprised to see her wearing blue jeans today, although the sweater is still a little on the tight and revealing side. Her shoes seem to be more sensible, and Quinn suspects that's because Rachel is, in fact, planning to drag her all over the city. She grins at Rachel's predictability as she pulls the curtain to the bedroom closed and picks out her wardrobe for the day.

When Quinn emerges again, the odd tension from earlier is gone and a little bit more of the old Rachel peeks through when she whips out an itinerary custom created with Quinn's interests in mind. Quinn laughingly rips it out of Rachel's hand and tears it in half, an act that Rachel loudly protests as she makes a fruitless lunge for the shredded paper.

"Let's just be spontaneous," Quinn requests. Rachel gazes forlornly at her ruined itinerary until Quinn wraps an arm around her shoulders and gives her a comforting squeeze. "Show me your city, Rach."

Rachel is more than happy to comply, and—after another subway ride that at least allows them both a seat—Quinn finds herself back in Manhattan, walking the busy sidewalks next to Rachel. There's a frenetic energy to the city, even on a weekend, and just being in the middle of it is almost as exciting as the promise of visiting some of the famous landmarks. Even without a written list, Rachel seems to have mentally mapped their day, and Quinn decides to humor her a bit, obediently following her to the Empire State Building. "A tourist must," Rachel insists.

Quinn can't say that she enjoys the line or the waiting, or _damn it_, the tiny crowded elevator that makes her grip Rachel's hand as she closes her eyes and tries to breathe. Rachel squeezes back, leaning close and whispering, "Oh, Quinn. I'm sorry, I forgot."

"It's fine," she grits out through clenched teeth. She feels Rachel huddle closer. Her free hand rubs soothingly against Quinn's forearm, calming her, and then the elevator doors slide open and there's air and space and _wow_—the view.

They make their way to the outdoor observation deck, and the wind whips through Quinn's hair. Rachel and her tiny body maneuver into a nook right next to the edge, and she reaches back for Quinn, pulling her close until Quinn is pressed into her back and her chin hovers over Rachel's left shoulder. Quinn catches her breath at the intimacy of the position, but Rachel doesn't seem to notice. She's too busy pointing out over the city and telling Quinn to look. "Isn't it beautiful?" Rachel asks.

"Yeah, totally," Quinn says softly, resisting the urge to wrap her arms around Rachel's waist and lose herself to the romance of the moment. Okay, so she's seen _Sleepless in Seattle_ a few times. A girl can dream, can't she? Instead she shoves her hands into her pockets and gazes down at the buildings and streets and the traffic pulsing along. Up here, it's quiet and peaceful and full of endless possibilities. She likes the feeling, but eventually it has to end. Rachel's internal clock is ringing its alarm, and she's antsy to get moving.

The elevator ride down isn't as bad, probably because there are less people. When they reach the 80th floor, Rachel tries to guide her into another elevator, but Quinn resists, smiling and detouring them to the gift shop so she can buy a souvenir. Rachel pouts a little, trying to convince Quinn that she doesn't need anything, but Quinn takes her time browsing, and, soon enough, she and Rachel are laughing over some of the tackier keepsakes.

They spend most of the morning bouncing around Midtown, and even though Rachel grumbles a little every time they backtrack, Quinn thinks it might be one of the best days she's ever had. She silently ticks off landmarks from her list—like the Flatiron Building and Macy's and Rockefeller Center—but she thinks her favorite moments might just be walking along the streets in the quieter neighborhoods with Rachel's hand tucked into her elbow as they talk about frivolous things. Quinn can't remember them ever having a conversation in high school that wasn't weighted with deeper meaning. It all felt so heavy and somber. They still have those moments from time to time, but it's so nice to just be able to laugh a little.

Rachel buys her a late lunch at a little vegetarian-friendly restaurant that doesn't look like much from the outside. It's the kind of place that Quinn would never set foot in if left to her own devices, but she'd be missing a hidden treasure on the inside. She's discovering that a lot of things in life are like that, including the girl sitting across from her.

After lunch, Rachel excitedly guides Quinn through a quick tour of the NYADA campus. They end up in a karaoke bar that Rachel swears is popular among the students. Quinn raises a skeptical eyebrow but follows her inside, saying, "Don't even think you're getting me to sing."

"We'll see," she trills, leading Quinn over to one of the few open tables. They're barely settled in their chairs before a guy is standing next to their table smiling down at them. Quinn thinks he's a waiter at first glance, until Rachel's eyes spark with recognition and she murmurs, "Brody, hi."

_So this is Brody_, Quinn thinks, eying him up and down. She has to admit that he's pretty to look at—Rachel's taste in men seems to be improving anyway.

"Hey, I haven't seen you around much lately," he says with an easy smile.

"Yeah, I've been…busy," Rachel hedges, glancing down at the table.

"It's cool," he says, finally glancing Quinn's way. "Hi. I'm Brody," he introduces, holding out his hand.

Quinn reaches out reflexively, unable to escape the good manners that have been drilled into her since she was a little girl. "Quinn," she tells him, trying not to be impressed by his firm handshake, blue eyes, and too-white smile.

"You're the friend from Yale, right?" he asks, much to Quinn's surprise. She nods mutely, watching his smile widen. "It's nice to finally meet you. Rachel's told me so much about you."

Quinn's gaze crashes into Rachel's, and she quirks a brow. "Good things, I hope," she drawls amiably, but really, when she considers everything that Rachel might have said about her, she supposes that she might have a reason to worry.

"Of course," Rachel promises.

Brody drags out the empty chair in front of him and slides into it uninvited, crossing his arms on the table. "So how do you like New Haven, Quinn?" he asks.

"I like it better than Lima," she says with a shrug.

He chuckles. "I was up there with a friend last summer for the Jazz Festival. It's a nice city."

"And close enough to New York to visit regularly," Rachel adds with a grin.

"Quinn is a lot prettier than your last visitors," he jokes, and Quinn watches Rachel's smile disappear, and she wonders if all men have the same disease that causes them to say stupid shit. At least Brody realizes that he's done it, because he smiles sheepishly and taps his palm against the table, muttering, "Sorry. That was probably inappropriate. Why don't you let me buy you both a drink before you get back to your girls' day?"

Quinn's brows furrow. "You do know we're both underage."

"I won't tell if you don't," he says with a grin, hooking his thumb in the direction of the bar. "Anyway, the bartender here doesn't ask a lot of questions. I think he figures it's pretty pointless since all the college students have fake IDs."

"I don't," Rachel mumbles.

"Or I could buy you a soda or a mineral water," Brody offers with a smile.

"I'll take a vodka cranberry," Quinn decides on a whim. If Brody is crashing her afternoon with Rachel, at least she can get a free drink out of the deal.

"Quinn?"

"Rachel will have the same," she tells Brody, ignoring Rachel's little squeak of protest.

Brody laughs and nods, sliding his chair back along the floor and standing. "Coming right up."

He's barely out of earshot when Rachel leans forward with a frown. "Quinn," she whispers harshly. "What are you thinking?"

"Please, don't act like you're advocating temperance when you and Kurt have a mini-wine cellar stashed in your bedrooms."

Rachel blushes. "Well, yes, but that's different. I haven't sampled anything stronger than wine since that disastrous week junior year."

Quinn sighs. "It's only one drink, Rachel. Just take small sips and you'll be fine. If this place is anything like the bars around Yale, it'll probably be mostly cranberry anyway."

Rachel frowns, eyeing her skeptically. "It sounds as if you've been partaking in the full college experience far more than you've been letting on."

Quinn shrugs. "I've been to a few parties," she admits, "and I have a fake ID."

Rachel's brows furrow in concern as she nibbles on her lower lip. "Tell me you're being responsible."

Quinn should probably be annoyed, but she kind of likes that Rachel is concerned for her. "Don't worry. I have no intentions of screwing up my life again now that I'm finally on the right track," she promises. "I'm just finally having a little fun, you know? It's nice to not have to try so hard to fit a certain image."

Rachel glances down at the table. "I wouldn't know," she says quietly. "Sometimes I think I'm still trying too hard."

"What do you mean?" Quinn asks with a small frown.

Rachel's shoulder rises and falls. "Just that…I came to New York thinking that everything would fall into place. And in some ways it has," she concedes. "I mean, living with Kurt has been great, I'm doing really well in my voice classes, but…well, I've told you about my dance instructor."

"Crazy Cassie July," Quinn mutters.

"Mmhmm. It feels like no matter what I do, it's not enough…and it shouldn't bother me as much as it does because it's just one class, but then I start to wonder if maybe it means that I really don't have what it takes to make it…that maybe I should have stayed in Lima and married Finn."

"Okay, just stop," Quinn demands. "You spent the first half of this year doubting you were good enough to get into NYADA, and yet here you are," she points out, sweeping a hand around the bar. "So screw Cassandra July and anyone who tells you that you're not good enough. The Rachel Berry that I admire doesn't ever give up. This is what you're meant to be doing, Rachel. I know it. Kurt knows it. Hell, even Finn finally figured it out." Rachel sucks in a breath, and Quinn sags back against her chair, wishing that she hadn't mentioned Finn's name. "I'm sorry," she mumbles.

"I want to be over him," Rachel whispers. "I…I don't like who I turned into when I was with him…but I don't know who I am without him either."

Quinn's stomach twists, and she shakes her head. "You have time to figure it out, Rachel. You just need to forget about Finn Hudson." There's so much more she wants to say—that Rachel was amazing before Finn made her doubt herself, that she's better off without him, that breaking up was the best thing for both of them—but she doesn't, and then Brody is back at the table, juggling three glasses.

He slides the two filled with red liquid in front of Rachel and Quinn and keeps one with amber liquid for himself. If Quinn were in the mood to guess, she'd say scotch on the rocks—Russell's drink of choice. She hopes that isn't a sign.

Rachel reaches for her glass, lifting it to her lips and emptying half the contents in a single swallow. Quinn's eyes widen. "Rachel!"

"Woah, slow down there," Brody advises.

Rachel puffs out a breath and smacks her lips. "It's good. Here's to forgetting," she says, raising her glass in a toast before she takes another drink.

Quinn frowns, watching her carefully as she takes a sip of her own drink. She realizes in an instant that _this_ bar is nothing like the ones in New Haven and _this_ bartender isn't skimping on the alcohol.

_Shit,_ she thinks. It's a good thing they're only having one drink. Except one drink turns into two when Rachel asks Brody to, "be a sweetheart and get me another one of these wonderful drinks," and he does with minimal argument.

"Maybe you should sip this one slowly," Quinn advises when he comes back to the table.

"Or maybe we should both just relax and have a little fun," Rachel counters with a raised eyebrow, accepting the glass that Brody hands her with a challenge in her eyes.

Brody sinks down into his chair, sliding a second drink in front of Quinn even though she's only about halfway finished with her first. "Don't worry," he says, "I'll make sure you both get home safely." It sounds like a line to Quinn, and she turns her suspicious gaze on him. Brody's smile dims under her scrutiny, and he holds out his hands in supplication. "Rachel can vouch for my character," he assures her.

Rachel, ignoring Quinn's advice to sip her drink, mumbles over the rim of her glass, "I vouch."

Quinn wants to dislike him—she really, really does—but other than his willingness to aid in their underage drinking, Brody hasn't given her a good enough reason to question Rachel's judgment of him. Granted, Rachel's judgment led her to almost marry Finn while they were both still in high school with no money to their names and still living with their parents, so maybe Quinn shouldn't trust her on this. Still, she's been told just enough about Brody by both Rachel and Kurt to know he's been fairly supportive of Rachel so far, even if Quinn is almost positive he's hoping to get under Rachel's skirt.

Sighing, Quinn shrugs and takes a sip of her own drink, silently deciding to go with the flow. Brody smiles again, leaning forward and crossing his arms on the table. "Rachel said you were in glee club with her. Any chance of an impromptu performance?" he asks, tipping his head toward the little stage.

Quinn raises an eyebrow. "Only if I have at least six more of these," she lifts her glass and rattles the ice to punctuate how unlikely it is that anyone will get her to sing.

She's not surprised at all when Rachel is on stage in less than fifteen minutes. She's even less surprised that Brody is up there with her. Quinn drops her chin into the palm of her hand and tries not to brood over how effortlessly they harmonize or how good they look standing next to one another. She resolves to dislike Brody on principal—she doesn't particularly care that she has her own pool of ridiculously attractive suitors to choose from should she decide to indulge. _Rachel _needs to be single for a while longer.

Despite Brody's presence, Quinn can't help enjoying the performance—it's been too long since she's seen Rachel in her element, surrendering to the simple joy of singing. It's what initially drew her to Rachel in the first place, and she thinks it might even be what she misses most now that she's eighty-two miles away from her daily dose of Rachel's voice.

Most of the patrons in the bar have turned their attention to the stage by the time the duo sing their final notes, and the applause and intermittent wolf-whistles are enough to infuse Rachel with a performance high that, on top of the alcohol, keeps her onstage for another song even after Brody graciously refuses to join her again. He collapses back into his chair with a wide grin, murmuring, "She's really something."

Quinn hums her agreement, eyes unabashedly focusing on Rachel.

"You know," Brody begins, leaning closer to Quinn so she can hear him over Rachel's singing and irritating her to no end, "she'll probably drag you up there too before the day is over."

The corner of her mouth twitches into a vague smile, and she silently shrugs, refusing to look away from the stage. She has no intention of going up there and singing today or any day in the near future, but she knows that Rachel has a way of convincing her to do things that she normally wouldn't.

When all is said and done, it doesn't require six more drinks for Quinn to find herself standing next to Rachel with her face aflame and gripping onto the microphone stand like it's a crutch and a shield all rolled into one—it only requires three. Their a cappella reprise of _I Feel Pretty/Unpretty_ (that a much more inebriated Rachel settled for after Quinn adamantly refused every other suggestion that would have required a natural talent that she simply doesn't possess) actually goes over fairly well, even if Quinn does sing the entire song with her gaze firmly fixed on the ceiling.

She feels Rachel sway into her at the end of the song, wrapping an arm around her waist and clinging to her as she giggles. Quinn stumbles a bit under the unexpected weight, but she doesn't bother to pry Rachel off of her before they attempt to step down off the stage—which is probably a mistake. She has a feeling that they're actually not walking very straight, and Quinn notices the bartender eyeing them oddly. She's not particularly in the mood to get arrested for underage drinking, even if it would be kind of satisfying to pin Brody as their "dealer." (She ignores the fact that she's spent the last two hours laughing at his jokes and stories and that he's probably as nice as he seems. It's the principle of it after all.)

They stumble back to the table, and Rachel detaches from Quinn only to practically fall into Brody's lap. She loops an arm over his shoulder to keep her balance while he reflexively grasps her waist to steady her. "Brody, tell me…you can tell me…be honest…like the…like the honest, up…upstanding guy you are," she says gravely, clumsily patting his chest with her free hand, "were Quinn and I brilliant…or simply outstanding?"

He shakes his head indulgently and flashes a wide smile. "Brilliant," he assures her, glancing questioningly at Quinn who might be leaning a little heavily against the table and glaring down at him.

"See, Quinn, see," Rachel says, blindly reaching back for her and managing to twist her fingers into Quinn's blouse, "told you we'd be awesome together." She leans closer to Brody, tugging Quinn's shirt at the same time and causing her to stumble closer to Rachel. "Quinn's a lot more talented than she knows," she says close to Brody's ear, possibly intending to whisper but failing completely.

Quinn tries to ignore the fiery trail of delighted embarrassment that's racing across the back of her neck and attacking her ears at Rachel's compliment, or maybe it's also from the backs of Rachel's fingers, still twisted in her shirt and brushing softly against her belly—in any case, it's now an inarguable fact that they've both had too much to drink.

"I think you're a lot drunker than you know," Quinn points out, gently prying the hem of her shirt from Rachel's grasp.

Rachel makes an odd sputtering sound, clearly meant to express disagreement, and Brody grimaces slightly, wiping at his cheek. Quinn presses a hand to her mouth to stifle her giggle. Rachel defiantly reaches for her half-full glass and downs the remaining liquid like a shot.

"Why don't you ladies let me pay for a taxi to get you home safely?" Brody suggests, sliding the glass from Rachel's hand and setting it back on the table. He makes sure to help Rachel get her balance as he stands.

"But the day's still young," she whines. "I'm young. Quinn's young. You're young." Rachel grins, beginning to hum a bit before she sings, "We are young, so let's set the world on fi…"

Quinn groans and slaps a hand over Rachel's mouth. "A taxi is probably a good idea," Quinn tells Brody. He nods, pressing his lips into an amused grin that shows off his annoying dimples—she really doesn't want to like him.

Brody slips an arm securely around Rachel's waist but instead of doing the expected thing and leaning into him, she grabs for Quinn's arm and curls her own securely around it. "You're coming home with me," she insists. "New…New Haven is too, too far away."

Quinn shakes her head—probably a bad idea because the bar slants a little to the left—and reminds Rachel, "I'm going back tomorrow."

"Good. Not good that you're leaving…that sucks," Rachel slurs with an exaggerated pout, "but good that you're coming." She frowns, stumbling to a stop and twisting into Quinn with furrowed brows. "You need to come visit me more," she demands. "Brody, tell her to visit more."

He rolls his eyes, humoring her. "Visit more," he echoes, gently nudging Rachel back into motion.

He safely guides them both out onto the sidewalk, and the chilly evening air slaps Quinn in the face. It feels good though—sobering—and her head clears just a little. Brody lets go of Rachel, and she shifts her weight completely onto Quinn while Brody jogs to the corner and begins waving for one of the vacant taxis that seem to be constantly prowling every street in New York. It only takes two minutes for him to have a car stopped in front of them.

"You're a nice guy, Brody," Rachel tells him, clutching at the taxi door with one hand and patting his chest with the other. "I like nice guys. They're…nice. Finn was nice, too…except when he was laughing at me…or…or you know…telling me I was selfish…or…putting me on a train when we were supposed to get married and not talking to me for three months." Rachel frowns, seeming to think over what she just said. "Actually, Finn sucks." She pokes Brody's shoulder—it doesn't have much effect but seems to surprise him, and his eyebrows arch. "You'd better not secretly suck, too," she warns him angrily.

Quinn can't help laughing, and she circles her fingers around Rachel's wrist and tugs it away from Brody's shoulder. She turns Rachel toward the door and helps her into the backseat of the taxi. Once Rachel is settled, Quinn turns to Brody with her tipsy smile still in place. "If you do secretly suck, Rachel will forgive you. She's amazing that way." Her smile disappears as she steps forward, narrowing her eyes and tilting her chin. "But I'm not as forgiving," she promises.

Brody chuckles a little nervously, but he nods, holding out his hand. "It was nice to meet you, Quinn."

She doesn't say anything, and she looks down at his hand with a frown, but she still finds herself placing her own palm against his and accepting the handshake. Letting go, she attempts to gracefully slide into the taxi next to Rachel. She thinks she's done an okay job of it, but she can't be certain—she's leaning more than a little to the left.

Brody braces his hands on the roof of the taxi and leans in, glancing at the driver with a grin and rattling off Rachel's address. He hands the driver a few bills, saying, "This should cover the fare and the tip if you don't take any unnecessary detours. Make sure they get into the building safely and remember that I've got your cab number, buddy." The driver rolls his eyes and takes the cash, and Brody smiles at Rachel and Quinn again. "Goodnight," he says with a wink before he closes the door.

The taxi instantly jerks into motion, and just as quickly, Rachel is looping her arm through Quinn's and dropping her head onto Quinn's shoulder. "He really is a nice guy," Rachel mutters groggily, and Quinn hums non-committally, refusing to agree out of principle.

The ride back to Rachel's apartment is fairly uneventful, but Quinn discovers just how cuddly Rachel can be when she's drunk. She vaguely remembers flashes of Rachel hanging off Finn and Blaine and Mike Chang a few years ago, but experiencing it first hand is a little disconcerting. It's harder to ignore all of those feelings that she wishes she could make go away.

"I'm sorry I made you sing," Rachel says into the silence, stroking Quinn's arm in a way that's making her skin prickle. "I jus…just really missed your voice."

Quinn's breath catches at the soft admission. "Even though I'm occasionally sharp," she jokes around the sudden dryness in her throat, attempting to lighten the mood so the knots in her stomach won't wind any tighter.

Rachel presses impossibly closer, reaching down to grip Quinn's hand with borderline desperation as she turns wide, worried eyes to Quinn. "No! No…you're not sharp. Your voice is smooth…like honey…and…and sweet…and…you've come so…so far since I said that…and you never sang enough, Quinn! Why didn't you sing more? You de…deprived me of a wonderful audit…auditory experience. It's really unforgivable," she huffs with a pout before her eyes grow wide again, glistening suspiciously. "I'm sorry…so sorry…say you forgive me," she begs, tugging at Quinn's hand despondently.

Quinn's emotions dip and swirl with every word, and she's not quite sure where she ends up by the end of Rachel's ramble, but she purses her lips and nods jerkily, squeezing Rachel's hand. "Sure thing, Rach," she mutters awkwardly, a little horrified when Rachel nearly straddles her lap to hug her forcefully.

"You're the best friend I've ever had who isn't Kurt," she mumbles into Quinn's shoulder.

Quinn chuckles uncomfortably, lifting a hand to pat Rachel's back. There's a knee tucked a little too snugly between her thighs, and Quinn does her best to subtly shift farther back in her seat. "Rachel, could you…maybe sit back down now?" Her voice is raspier than she wants it to be.

Rachel squeezes her shoulders tighter and nods, but she doesn't actually move. "You smell like angels," she eventually murmurs.

Quinn swallows thickly, closing her eyes tightly. "Rachel," she begs huskily.

She feels the girl in her arms sigh heavily before she finally shifts away, no longer encroaching on Quinn's personal space but still close enough to keep her shoulder barely brushing against Quinn's. Quinn feels hot all over, and she takes a few deep breaths before she finally opens her eyes. She stares straight ahead and sees the driver's bemused smirk in the mirror. Quinn scowls at him.

The taxi pulls in front of Rachel's building a few minutes later, and the driver tells them that the fare is covered. Quinn steps out of the taxi and stumbles just a little, taking a moment to regain her balance before she helps Rachel up. Rachel takes this as an invitation to curl her arm around Quinn's waist and lean into her. Quinn groans and kicks the door closed as they both awkwardly stumble into the building. She notices that the taxi driver did, in fact, wait until they were inside to pull away. She's mildly impressed.

Rachel seems to catch a case of the giggles on their way up to the apartment, and Quinn grins in response. She's outright laughing as she watches Rachel make five attempts to unlock her door before she finally succeeds and they stumble inside.

Kurt still isn't back from his outing, so it's just Quinn and Rachel alone in the apartment. Quinn messily kicks off her shoes and sinks onto the chair, rubbing her feet, while Rachel disappears into one of the curtained-off rooms for a moment before she reappears with another bottle of wine. Quinn frowns at her as she brings it over to set on the coffee table. Rachel toes off her own shoes and collapses onto the futon, folding her jean-clad legs beneath her.

"I think you've had enough," Quinn says, watching Rachel fumble with the corkscrew and repeatedly miss the mouth of the bottle.

"I'm perfect...perfectly capable of deciding when I've had enough, thank you," Rachel growls, pointing the corkscrew at Quinn with a scowl. "So you can just…just stop being such a _Finn_."

"Excuse me?" Quinn growls, gaping at Rachel and the corkscrew wavering back and forth in midair.

Rachel puffs out her cheeks and takes another stab at the bottle—the metal point of the corkscrew scratches along the neck. "You _don't_ know what's best for me," she insists. "You think…you think you do, but you don't. I don't need my…my best frienemy to tell me to breakup with my boyfriend…or…or that I shouldn't get married…and I don't need fiancés to breakup with me at train stations or…or leave me in the middle of the night for my own good." She flails her hands in exasperation, shaking the bottle of wine and coming very close to poking her own eye with the corkscrew as she screeches, "Who does that?"

Quinn scrambles off the chair, grabbing for Rachel's wrist to keep her from doing any damage with her makeshift weapons before she falls next to her on the futon—she doesn't think twice about its questionable origins. "Finn's a jerk," she mutters, prying the corkscrew out of Rachel's hand and grabbing for the bottle as well. Rachel surrenders it without a fight, and Quinn gently lays both down on the coffee table.

"He is. He's a big jerk," Rachel nods, "and so are you, Quinn Fabray…being all…all…_Quinn_," she stresses, and Quinn arches an eyebrow at that, opening her mouth to ask how in the hell _she's_ a jerk in all of this, but Rachel rambles on, saying, "You're smarter than me…dropping anchors at Yale. And being so frush…frustratingly attractive." She pauses, reaching out with an unsteady hand to unexpectedly run her fingers through Quinn's hair. "Prettiest girl anywhere ever," she mumbles, causing Quinn's breath to hitch.

Rachel's touch is gone as suddenly as it came, and she licks her lips as she attempts to focus on Quinn, almost as if she's trying to sober up but it isn't quite working. "You're like…you…you never let anything keep you down. Even when you're dying your hair pink and getting re…ridiculous tattoos, you still… You just…make it all work…every time."

Quinn chuckles a little. "You know that's not true, Rach. I was a mess."

"No," Rachel insists, swaying forward and gripping Quinn's shoulder. "You got it together. You kept fighting. You got out of a freaking wheelchair in, like, three months. You...you're an unstoppable force. Not me. I just…I just fell apart. Into tiny little Rachel-shaped pieces."

"You didn't."

"I did," Rachel shouts, releasing her grip on Quinn. "I gave up on putting me first and taking chances and…and used Finn like a…a safety-net. I was going to stay in Lima and become a _housewife_," she spits, grimacing. "Me! A housewife! Can you imagine?"

Quinn swallows, pushing aside the unbidden image of Rachel in an apron and not much else, and shakes her head mutely.

"No…no you probably can't," Rachel whispers, "you tried to stop me."

"You were too young," Quinn says quietly.

"Too stupid," Rachel says shakily, wrapping her fingers around the wine bottle and dragging it towards her. She tries to take a drink before she realizes that she never managed to remove the cork. Quinn brushes Rachel's hand away from the table the moment she reaches for the corkscrew again.

"You really have had enough to drink," she repeats.

Rachel huffs, hugging the bottle to her. "I just wanna forget, Quinn. I wanna forget Finn and who I was with him, and Brody being all…not-Finn, and crazy Cassie telling me I'm wasting my time, and how pretty you are even when you don't try, and how you bought me train tickets that I'm terrified to use because you're…"

She trails off, biting her lip, and Quinn grits her teeth, trying to make her fuzzy mind follow what Rachel is saying. "I'm what?" she asks.

Rachel shakes her head stubbornly, closing her eyes and tipping her head back to rest on the edge of futon. "You're not supposed to like me back," she mumbles. "It confuses me."

Quinn digs her fingers into the cushion and swallows heavily. "But I do like you," she confesses so softly that she's certain Rachel can't have heard her. She watches Rachel's lips curve into a crooked smile and knows that she was wrong.

Rachel opens her eyes and grins up at Quinn. "If you like me…you'll open this," she bargains, holding out the bottle of wine.

Quinn smiles, taking the bottle from Rachel, who releases a little squeal of giddiness, at least until Quinn sets it back on the table. Rachel growls her disapproval and sits up quickly, but despite her claims to the contrary, she really has had too much to drink already, and she falls into Quinn, grasping at her to keep from tipping forward off the futon. Quinn hisses out a breath as Rachel haphazardly grips the material of her blouse both in front and behind her left shoulder. The hand twisting at her back doesn't bother Quinn at all, but the one in front…

Rachel has a palm full of Quinn's left breast, and Quinn's body goes rigid—one part embarrassingly more so than the others. She doubts that Rachel really notices though because she doesn't even seem to be aware that she's currently copping a feel. She giggles at her own clumsiness, leaning heavily into Quinn's side and dropping her forehead onto Quinn's shoulder. Her hands don't move from their position.

"Rach," Quinn rasps, "could you...ah?"

Rachel hums, letting go of the material over Quinn's shoulder blade, only to loop that arm over Quinn's upper back and burrow closer. "You really do smell so good," Rachel slurs drowsily.

Rachel's hot breath against her shoulder causes a flutter in Quinn's belly, but she ignores it, wondering if Rachel is falling asleep on her. Sighing, she carefully curls her fingers under Rachel's left hand and eases it away from her breast. As soon as they touch, Rachel jerks her head up. Her eyes are wide and unexpectedly focused. Quinn grows still, her fingers warm against Rachel's skin.

They're close—closer than they should be—and Quinn is too aware of the sudden silence in the room. The only thing she hears is her own skittering heart, and her eyes want to linger on Rachel's parted lips, but she forces them to stay on Rachel's dark gaze instead. She tries to smile, attempting to form some sardonic phrase in her head that will bring them out of this odd moment, but it all dies on her lips when Rachel says, "You have beautiful eyes."

The way those words sound—so soft and gentle, whispered like a lover's secret—twist into her heart. She reminds herself that Rachel is drunk, and a drunk Rachel is extra clingy and unfiltered, and her compliments don't mean anything more than they ever have. Rachel thinks she's pretty. Well, Quinn _knows_ she's pretty, and she loves having people agree with her. She works hard on her appearance, after all, but it's the fact that Rachel seems to find something worthwhile on the _inside_ that leaves Quinn a little breathless in wonder sometimes.

"So green," Rachel adds, somehow leaning farther into Quinn's personal space.

"They're hazel," she murmurs distractedly.

"They're green when you look at me."

Quinn doesn't have the chance to reflect on the truth of that statement—not that she could ever prove it one way or another without holding a mirror behind Rachel's head, but then she'd be looking more at the mirror than Rachel, and what good would that do?—because Rachel closes those final few inches between them and brushes those lips at which Quinn had resolved not to stare at across her...

Cheek?

_What the hell?_

She's disappointed—overwhelmingly so. Kissing Rachel isn't something she's spent much time consciously thinking about for fear of where it might lead her, but that doesn't mean that she isn't achingly familiar with the particular brand of frustration that comes from moments like this. She should be relieved, because a drunken kiss between them would be so many kinds of wrong when she knows that Rachel is still rebounding from Finn, and flirting with Brody and his pretty white teeth, and at least ninety-nine percent heterosexual. Quinn never attempts to calculate her own percentage. She doubts any mathematical formula could help her figure herself out, and sometimes she thinks it's only Rachel that makes her question anything anyway—Rachel and the softness of her lips as they ghost over Quinn's cheek.

Quinn releases a shaky breath that flutters through the loose strands of Rachel's hair. Rachel hesitates, her mouth still temptingly close and her eyelids fluttering as she looks at Quinn. Her fingers curl more tightly around Quinn's where their hands are still touching, and then all of Quinn's disappointment evaporates with the taste of moist lips painted with the flavor of cranberry and vodka.

The kiss sends a shock through her system, and for a moment she wonders if this is all some drunken hallucination, but the truth is that she's feeling a lot more sober all of a sudden. She knows that she should stop this—pull away and play it off and remind Rachel that she's drunk and not in full possession of her faculties—but the devil on her shoulder whispers that this is probably her one and only chance to have a taste of Rachel Berry. It's what makes her chase Rachel's mouth the second she feels her start to pull away. It's what makes her capture Rachel's plump lower lip and twist her body on the futon so that she can snake an arm around Rachel's waist and keep her close. It's what has her tongue taking the silent invitation when Rachel's mouth parts beneath hers.

But it's Rachel that moans first, and it's Rachel's hand that finds its way into Quinn's hair, and Rachel that leans back against the futon and pulls Quinn with her.

Quinn has kissed a lot of guys. Some have been more memorable than others—some with a little more finesse, some with tenderness, some blurred in a haze of alcohol, and some sloppy and forgettable. Kissing Rachel is a combination of things, but she knows in an instant that she won't ever forget it, although she might wish she could once it's over.

Rachel shifts against her, wrapping her arms around Quinn and trying to pull her closer, and it sparks a single moment of rationality in Quinn. She breaks the kiss and pulls back, stomach flipping at the sight of Rachel, flushed and tousled underneath her. "We should stop," she whispers thickly, even though she really doesn't want to—if this is a onetime only opportunity, she wants to make it count.

Rachel furrows her brows in confusion, looking adorably dazed, and Quinn just wants to lean back down and kiss her again. "The fireworks are too pretty," Rachel mumbles.

Frowning in confusion, Quinn mentally questions how drunk Rachel is, but when she cups her palm around Quinn's neck and drags her back down for another kiss, Quinn figures that's enough of an answer for now. The devil on her shoulder agrees.

* * *

**A/N:** This was actually started back in late November, so any similarities to a certain episode airing are purely coincidental. As always, feedback is appreciated.


	2. We're Not Heroines

**Part II: We're Not Heroines**

* * *

Consciousness creeps in like a slow building drum roll, beginning as a steady, annoying buzz around the rim and then building fast and loud until it's an endless pounding in the center of her head. The first thing she really becomes aware of is the throbbing behind her eyes that seems to be keeping rhythm with her heart. Her mouth is dry and fuzzy, and there's a bitterness sitting on the back of her tongue that makes her frown. Her cheek is numb, and her lips feel bruised, so she can't even be one hundred percent certain that her muscles actually move enough to turn her mouth down at the edges. She tries to pry her eyes open, but even her eyelashes hurt and the weight of the lids won't budge.

She puffs out a breath into her pillow that ends up sounding more like a groan and manages to drag her hand out from its twisted position between her body and the mattress, except the sensation of an arm pressed against the side of her breast doesn't disappear. Something moves unexpectedly beneath her cheek, causing a surge of adrenaline to spike in her belly. And like waking from a nightmare, Rachel's eyes finally pop open—only to slam shut against the light streaming in from the window. Her headache intensifies.

A soft hum vibrates close to her ear, and that phantom arm beneath her moves and pulls her forward. As bleary and disoriented as Rachel is, she's aware enough to realize that she isn't alone. She sucks in a breath and holds it as she slowly opens her eyes for the second time, better prepared for the light but not fully prepared for whom she'll find next to her—or underneath her.

The first thing she registers after her eyes adjust is a field of baby blue directly in her line of vision. Upon closer inspection—once she's able to focus around the pulse ringing in her temples—she realizes that it's a soft cotton blouse, wrinkled and tightly twisted over a pair of small, pert breasts. The fact that they're directly in front of Rachel's eyes means that her head is currently pillowed on a woman's shoulder. She manages to move her head just enough for her bed partner's chin to drag against her forehead, and she glimpses the messy strands of honey-blonde hair mingled with her own dark tresses.

_Quinn_, she realizes in relief as she matches the hair and the blouse to the disjointed memories of spending the afternoon in Manhattan with her friend. The nervous tension drains from her body in increments, and she exhales in relief, relaxing into Quinn's side and letting her aching eyes flutter shut. Quinn shifts again, rubbing her chin a little against the top of Rachel's head and tightening the hold she has around Rachel's shoulder.

Rachel breathes in the mild scent of citrus—she's never been quite able to pick out exactly what fragrance Quinn uses, but it's light and clean and incredibly calming. She doesn't want to move. Her body feels heavy, and she knows the minute that she rolls over, her head will feel a hundred times worse. It's only when the synapses in her brain begin to fire a little more wakefully that Rachel starts to register the placement of certain parts of her body—her nose pressed into Quinn's collarbone, her right arm pressing against Quinn's side, her left hand trapped between cotton and hot, silky skin, and her left leg tangled between Quinn's. The last two immediately set off alarms in her mind (similar to the ones that sounded yesterday morning when she'd woken up much too far into Quinn's personal space), and she concentrates on carefully freeing her leg from its intimate position and moving her hand away from whatever part of Quinn's torso that she's currently molesting. She rolls away just enough to get her head back onto her own pillow, immediately discovering that she was absolutely correct about the effect on her massive headache.

_Hangover_, she realizes, recognizing the stale taste in her mouth and wondering how she'd let herself drink enough to result in this unpleasant feeling for only the second time in her life.

There's a sleepy mewl next to her as Quinn shifts, and Rachel forces her eyes open again, worried that Quinn will be upset with being used as a teddy bear through the night—she doesn't really consider the fact that Quinn's right arm is still trapped between the mattress and Rachel. She watches Quinn's face, or she tries to, but her attention gets caught on pale, pink lips, curling up at the edges in a lazy smile of contentment. Rachel catches her breath at the peaceful expression on Quinn's face, free from the cloak of melancholy that's been wrapped around her for years. For a moment, Rachel imagines a Quinn that wasn't forced to grow up so fast—a girl who could have smiled and laughed and danced her way through high school without the weight of the world crashing down on her delicate shoulders. The picture in her mind is so perfectly beautiful that Rachel almost wants to cry.

Those lips curve into a genuine smile as Quinn's eyelashes finally flutter open. "Hi," she whispers, voice rough with sleep. Rachel freezes, suddenly feeling like she did back in high school right before she'd confessed to stuffing the ballot box—like she's done something terribly wrong and Quinn is just a blink away from disappointment and disgust.

Rachel forces a half-smile, mumbling a scratchy apology for invading Quinn's space as she attempts to shuffle back on her small mattress, but Quinn's arm prevents her from getting very far. "'S'okay," Quinn purrs, smile still in place as her bleary eyes grow steadily brighter. "It's nice," she adds, shifting onto her side and reclaiming the space between them. "We can stay here and cuddle."

Rachel's eyes widen when Quinn's right hand settles lightly onto her hip. She can feel heat crawling up her neck, causing her skin to grow damp with sweat, and her head to throb double-time. Her stomach twists, and she thinks she's going to be sick, so she presses her lips together tightly, emitting a strained moan. Quinn's eyebrows dip in concern, and the smile slips away. "Rach?"

Rachel only shakes her head, taking deep, even breaths through her nose until the wave of queasiness passes. Quinn lifts her hand from Rachel's hip and gently brushes the hair back from Rachel's forehead. "You're not going to puke on me, are you?" she asks with equal parts wariness and humor.

Rachel exhales shakily and swallows as a precaution before she opens her mouth and says, "I don't think so. I do, however, currently have the cast of _Stomp_ performing endless encores in my head."

Quinn laughs lightly, tucking a last strand of Rachel's hair behind her ear before she drops her hand innocently to the mattress. "I did warn you to slow down after the second drink."

Rachel furrows her brows. She remembers dragging Quinn into Callbacks, and she's fairly certain that Brody bought them both a drink, but everything after that is coming up blank. She licks her lips, nearly too preoccupied with trying to rebuild last night's events to notice the way Quinn's gaze drops to her mouth and follows the movement of her tongue. Rachel presses her lips together self-consciously while Quinn's lips flirt with another smile.

"Did I," she clears her throat, glancing away from those sparkling, hazel eyes. She's reluctant to ask Quinn if she did anything that might be considered exceptionally embarrassing—there's a vague impression of having belted out a particularly emotional version of Kelly Clarkson's _Since U Been Gone_—so instead she says, "I'm sorry if I ruined our evening with…" She shrugs, leaving her apology for her overindulgence unfinished.

Quinn's smile turns a bit uncertain, but she shakes her head on the pillow. "You didn't ruin anything, Rach. Last night was…amazing."

There's something a little odd in her tone, and her hand is stroking tiny circles on the mattress between them. Rachel isn't certain what to make of it, but she's relieved that Quinn doesn't seem to be upset with her and even more relieved that Quinn isn't laughing over any drunken antics that Rachel can't recall. Still, Quinn's intense gaze is unaccountably unsettling, and Rachel shifts restlessly. "Yes…well…I…I'm glad you're okay with…you know."

"More than okay," Quinn murmurs, her grin blossoming into a full-blown smile that makes Rachel's breath hitch. That smile is so very rare.

"I should…I think…I need to use the bathroom," Rachel stutters, sitting up slowly and dragging the sheet off her lower body.

Rachel notices that her sweater is bunched and twisted beneath her breasts, exposing her stomach, and she quickly tugs it down, blushing when she realizes that her bra is unclasped and hanging uselessly underneath the fabric. Her blush deepens at the discovery that she isn't wearing much else except a pair of lacy, black panties. Her eyes dart to Quinn, who rolls onto her back and stretches languidly beside her, seemingly unconcerned with Rachel's state of undress.

Her disruption of the sheet leaves part of Quinn's left leg exposed, and Rachel takes in the length of ivory skin from knee to hip, marred only by a few fading scars that Quinn carries as a painful reminder of her car accident. Her mouth goes dry—dryer than it already is, if that's possible—when her eyes catch on the edge of pale, pink, bikini-briefs and follow the trimming until she's staring at Quinn's toned belly where her shirt has ridden up. Rachel slams her eyes closed, disturbed by the sensory memory of what that skin feels like beneath her fingertips.

Her stomach churns again, and she swings her legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the wave of dizziness that nearly tips her sideways. Gulping in a mouthful of oxygen, Rachel curls her fingers in the mattress and gingerly plants her feet on the floor before she pushes herself up into a standing position. On her first step, her toes catch on the discarded blue jeans lying in a messy pile by the bed, but she keeps her balance and barely avoids planting her face on the floor. Well, that explains what happened to her pants. Quinn's skirt is hanging from the frame of the mirror. Rachel doesn't even attempt to remember how it got there. She squats down as gracefully as she can and snags her jeans before she all but sprints to the bathroom—chased by the sound of Quinn's airy laughter.

The first thing she does (after taking care of the obvious necessities) is fumble in the medicine cabinet for the bottle of Advil. When she closes the mirrored door, she comes face to face with her reflection and gasps at what she sees. Her hair is a mess of tangled curls, and her makeup is smeared so badly that she looks like a raccoon masquerading as a circus clown. She groans, tossing two pills into her mouth and swallowing them dry before she turns on the faucet and goes to work scrubbing her face clean. She doesn't even want to contemplate the ill effects that last evening's carelessness will have on her complexion. Instead, she thinks about Quinn seeing her like this and wonders how she managed to keep from making a comment. Then she wonders how Quinn managed to wake up looking as pretty and perfect as ever—all adorably tousled. It just isn't fair.

Rachel dries her face, being sure to rub in a quick layer of moisturizer, and then she brushes her teeth because she's certain that the cottony feeling in her mouth is having an extra negative effect on her breath. She still can't remember much of last night. There are a few fuzzy images from the bar, but she doesn't have a clue how she and Quinn got back to the apartment. She decides that she needs to apologize to Quinn again.

She'd been looking forward to this visit all week—well, ever since Quinn gave her the Metro North pass, if she's being completely honest. It was just that she'd been so miserable for those first few weeks in New York, and she hadn't wanted Quinn to see her that way. And then Kurt had shown up, and Rachel had gotten busy with him and the apartment, and then Finn had arrived at her doorstep and shaken her foundation again. She'd wanted Quinn to see a strong, confident girl who's moving forward on her path to be a shining star, and it was only in the last week that Rachel had really started to feel like that girl—no, that _woman_—that Quinn seems to believe her to be. Well, until last night, anyway.

Rachel angrily drags a brush through her hair, hating the excessive curls that she doesn't have time to straighten. She's being a horrible hostess to Quinn. She'd done the same thing yesterday morning for almost the same reasons—being too clingy in her sleep and knowing that she looked like a complete mess while Quinn woke up looking like a beauty queen. Sighing, she concedes that this is as good as it's going to get without taking a shower and spending another forty minutes on her hair and makeup, so she ventures out of the bathroom.

She's feeling a bit more human. Her head is still throbbing, but it no longer feels like the percussion section of the New York Philharmonic is playing behind her eyes. She glances over at Kurt's bedroom on the way back to her own, but the curtain is still pulled closed. She has no idea what time he got back last night, or if he was here to see her and Quinn stumble in, but she can't wait to ask him about the photo shoot.

Smoothing over her hair one last time, she slowly pulls back the curtain sectioning off her own room, peeking inside to make sure that Quinn is decent. She breathes a little easier when she sees that Quinn is up and dressed in a green, short-sleeved dress, brushing her hair in front of the mirror as she softly hums a tune that Rachel can't quite identify. Rachel quietly slips inside, immediately noticing Quinn's bag sitting on the bed. An unexpected wave of sadness washes over her at Quinn's inevitable departure. She has the strongest urge to wrap her arms around Quinn and beg her to stay one more day—classes be damned. Instead, she crosses her arms over her stomach and distractedly worries her lip.

Quinn must notice the movement, and she jumps slightly, quickly dropping her hands and tucking them behind her back as she spins around to face Rachel. Her cheeks are tinted pink, and she shyly traps her lower lip between her teeth before she rolls her eyes in some secret amusement and grins. "How's your headache?" she asks, tossing her hairbrush into her open bag.

"A little better," Rachel answers with a small smile, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

"I'm glad," Quinn says, closing the small distance between them with an exaggerated sway to her hips. Rachel's eyes widen in shock when Quinn casually drops one arm over her shoulder and lifts her free hand to brush Rachel's bangs off to the side. "I was hoping we could pick up where we left off last night," she husks.

Rachel can admit that she isn't always appropriately attentive to social cues. She's been known to mistake sarcasm for genuine praise, she's often oblivious when others are irritated with her, and she occasionally imagines a deeper emotional connection with people (mainly romantic interests) than what actually exists. This has led to many embarrassing blunders that she would certainly rectify if given the opportunity. Needless to say, she's misread Quinn on countless occasions for countless reasons, whether Rachel had believed them on friendlier terms than they actually were, or suspected some underlying nefarious motive when, in fact, Quinn had been genuinely attempting to act as a voice of reason in Rachel's life. So perhaps it isn't surprising that Rachel's hungover brain is extra slow to identify Quinn's general proximity and the flirtatious inflection of her voice as the precursor to a very unexpected, non-platonic kiss, but in any case, Quinn's lips are already a breath away from Rachel's mouth by the time she realizes what's about to happen.

Rachel doesn't consciously think about it—the only thing she knows is that her body reacts with the same violent senses of dread that she'd felt when she'd missed the words of _Don't Rain On My Parade _during her NYADA audition. At the first feathery touch across her upper lip, Rachel jerks her head back and raises her hands to roughly push Quinn away. The action takes Quinn by surprise, and she stumbles back a step, looking confused and a little angry.

"What the hell, Rachel?" she growls, absently rubbing at her chest where Rachel's hand had inadvertently connected.

Rachel gapes at Quinn, fists curled so tightly that her nails bite into her palms. The shock of the moment has her struggling to form a coherent thought, but at the forefront of her mind is the certainty that this must be some cruel prank that Quinn is playing on her.

"What were you doing?" she shrieks. "You…did you just try to kiss me?"

Quinn's eyes narrow, and she defensively crosses her arms under her breasts. "Well, obviously. I mean, I popped a breath mint, if that's your issue."

"Is this a joke?" Rachel hisses incredulously. "Are you trying to exact some kind of twisted payback for whatever stupid, drunken thing I did or said last night? Because whatever is was, you have to know that I wasn't in full possession of my otherwise sound judgment."

The annoyed bewilderment on Quinn's face transforms into dismayed understanding before melting completely into unmistakable hurt. She tightens her arms across her torso, and her chin quivers noticeably. "So that's it?" she rasps. "You're just going to dismiss what happened as a drunken mistake?" She shakes her head, lifting a hand to wipe angrily at the tear escaping without her consent. "After _you _begged _me_ not to freak out and disappear before you woke up."

Rachel feels like she's been punched in the stomach, and she scrambles to remember saying that—to remember _anything_ about last night that would make any of _this_ make sense. She keeps coming back to the sensation of Quinn's skin under her fingers, and she's terrified of what that might mean. "I don't remember," she admits desperately, throwing out her hands to beg Quinn to understand. "Last night is one big blur after the first drink," she says, and Quinn gasps and presses trembling fingers to her lips.

Rachel's eyes widen. "Oh God, did we…? We didn't. We couldn't have," she insists. It's absolutely ridiculous to even contemplate. She's not sexually attracted to women _at all_, and neither is Quinn. This has got to be some bizarre misunderstanding.

Quinn chokes back a bitter laugh, shaking her head. She squeezes her eyes closed and drops her hand slowly. "You really don't remember?" she whispers so softly that Rachel barely hears her.

"What…what did we do, Quinn?" Rachel asks, almost as softly.

Quinn opens her glistening eyes, and she drags in a shaky breath. "You kissed me," she reveals, staring at Rachel as though she's willing her to remember. "You kissed me, and you liked it, and we spent half the night wrapped up in each other's arms."

Rachel shakes her head in silent denial. Of course she thinks Quinn is beautiful, and she's always understood exactly what guys like Finn and Noah see in her, and okay, maybe there was a brief period when she'd even wondered what it would be like to _be_ Quinn Fabray, but she's never thought about her…like _that_.

Quinn finally breaks eye contact, pushing her hands through her hair and blowing out a harsh, frustrated breath. "God, I'm such an idiot! I knew this would happen. I knew you'd had too much to drink, but I can never say no to you, Rachel," she accuses with a frown. "I just wanted one night with you, even though I knew you'd regret it in the morning. Only I thought you'd say it was because you still have feelings for Finn, or you're into Brody. I didn't think you'd have some drunken blackout!"

"You wanted one night with me," Rachel repeats stupidly. She really feels like she's dreaming this—it's just too surreal—and she honestly couldn't process anything Quinn had said after that one, impossible sentence.

Quinn purses her lips and glares at Rachel, her eyes snapping with fire. Rachel swallows heavily, sensing that Quinn's mood has fully shifted from hurt back to anger. "You are so freaking blind," Quinn snaps. "You can't see past the nose on your face." Rachel touches her nose self-consciously without even thinking about it, and Quinn stares up at the ceiling as she visibly tries to collect herself.

"Yes, Rachel," she finally says, her voice sounding tired. "I wanted a night with you—just one moment when I could let myself believe that you," she sighs, meeting Rachel's gaze once again, "that you could want me the same way I want you."

"But you can't want me," Rachel says defensively. "That's…we're _friends_, Quinn. Maybe the alcohol had some adverse influence on us last night, but…"

"It wasn't the alcohol," Quinn cuts in determinedly. "I've wanted you for more than a year."

Rachel's stomach drops out, and she's rendered completely speechless.

Quinn smiles bitterly. "And before you ask, I don't know if that makes me gay, or bisexual, or just attracted to you. I only know that no one affects me the way you do, and it isn't just physical. I really care about you, Rachel," she says, and her voice takes on a soft quality.

Rachel wraps her arms around herself in a protective hug. It feels like someone twisted barbed wire around her heart and is tightening the knots. Her first instinct is to deny Quinn's declaration—it _has_ to be impossible—but dozens of little moments full of pleading words and sad eyes come rushing back, and her entire history with Quinn gets suddenly, painfully rewritten. She doesn't like it at all.

"I'm straight, Quinn," she bites out. "I…I know I have two dads who are very proudly gay, but that doesn't make me gay too…or fluid…or whatever you want to call it." She'd had people assume that all her life—as if a gay couple would naturally have to raise a gay child—and she's always been quick to contradict that narrow-minded assumption. "Of course, there would be absolutely nothing wrong if I was attracted to women in a sexual way," she clarifies, "but I'm...I'm not. I like men, okay? _Only _men," she stresses. She'd been particularly clear about that since she was fifteen. All of her crushes had been on boys.

Quinn's eyes flash again, and she steps into Rachel's personal space, dropping her voice to a sensual rumble. "You liked me well enough last night to have your tongue in my mouth and your hand between my legs."

Rachel blanches, frantically trying to translate Quinn's words into memories, but she can only remember the way they woke up with their bodies tangled together in her bed. "I didn't…I was drunk, and…and I'm sorry, Quinn," she whispers, taking a step back. "I am. If…if I did those things," she swallows nervously, unable to keep meeting Quinn's challenging gaze. "I'm certain it must have been some kind of subconscious reaction to my drama professor's insistence that an actor has to collect life experiences in order to convincingly reproduce them in future roles," she reasons, nodding firmly. "And, well, I'm told it's perfectly normal to...to experiment a little when one is in college," she says, daring to meet Quinn's eyes again and shrinking back a little at the mix of hurt and anger evident in her expression.

"An experiment?"

"Y-yes. I mean, we were obviously both curious what it would be like to…to kiss another girl."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Quinn snaps. "To just write off last night as some mutual experimentation that doesn't mean anything."

Rachel frowns, dropping her eyes to the floor and shaking her head. "That's what it was," she says quietly, purposely dismissing Quinn's confession that it meant more to her, but just like always, Quinn refuses to allow her even the tiniest respite from the more unpleasant aspects of her reality.

"No, Rachel. That's not what it was. Not for me," she says hotly, thumping her open palm against her chest. "And you know what? Not for you either," her voice cracks, and she looks away. Her shoulders rise and fall as she struggles to compose herself, and when she turns back to Rachel, the familiar Fabray mask is back in place—only her eyes betray her lingering pain.

"I'm not going to be the experiment of a liberal arts student," she says evenly. "You wanted me last night, Rachel. You told me no one else has ever gotten you that hot. You said that you saw fireworks and supernovas when we kissed. Maybe the alcohol loosened you tongue or made you brave…whatever…but _in vino veritas_."

Rachel bristles at Quinn's superior tone—like what she's saying is the absolute truth, and Rachel is some ridiculous little fool who doesn't know her own mind, or body, or heart. In wine there is truth? Really? "Is that how you explain letting Noah Puckerman knock you up?" she fires back without thinking, wishing she could call back the words the moment she hears them out loud.

Quinn recoils, her eyes growing dull and her cheek twitching under the stress of her clenched jaw. She inhales sharply though her nose. "Wow," she breathes, "nice, using that against me." She shakes her head and turns away from Rachel, jerkily gathering up her toiletries laying on the nightstand and throwing them into her bag.

"No, Quinn…I…I didn't," Rachel stutters out, stepping closer to the bed and willing Quinn to look at her again.

"Stop," Quinn hisses as she focuses on repacking her bag. "Just…stop talking."

"I'm sorry," Rachel cries, touching the mattress.

"So am I. I'm sorry I ever thought you actually cared about me," Quinn growls, tugging the zipper of her bag closed with an angry flourish. When she finally looks at Rachel, the mask is gone again, and Rachel is faced with angry Quinn. "How stupid am I? You just wanted to put me in your win column, right? I mean, Rachel Berry, biggest _freak_ in McKinley," she grounds out with a scowl, "manages to steal the head cheerleader's boyfriend, her prom crown, and even her," she snaps her mouth closed, jerking her chin up and barking out a single, humorless laugh before she glares at Rachel. "Her _friendship_. Well, you can pat yourself on the back, Rachel, because you got more from me than you ever wanted," she says, shouldering her bag and forcing a brief, fake smile, "but we're done with that now."

A shiver of dread works through Rachel. "What…what do you mean?"

"I'm going back to New Haven," Quinn tells her calmly, "and I don't want you to contact me for a while."

"Quinn," Rachel whimpers, wildly piecing together some kind of argument to keep this from ruining the friendship that she's fought so hard to establish—because Quinn is wrong. She's so much more than some goal that Rachel set when she was fifteen in order to prove she was someone worthwhile. Quinn is...she's strong and smart and pragmatic, and Rachel has grown to value her opinion on so many things. She can't lose that now.

"I need some time away from you…really away from you, and not just," Quinn trails off on a frustrated sigh, her calm facade cracking ever-so-slightly. "You know, I thought I was doing so well. I was happy and moving on from high school and this weird…I don't know," she gestures to Rachel with an upturned hand, "crush, or whatever. Then I come here and see you, and you twist the knife into my heart all over again. Only now it's even worse because I know what's like to..." Quinn's eyes glisten, and she huffs in defeat, brushing past Rachel and jerking the curtain open.

Rachel stumbles, quickly turning to chase Quinn's determined strides away from her. "Quinn. Please, I," she reaches out and curls her hand around Quinn's biceps, forcing her to stop as Rachel shuffles in front of her. "I don't want to lose you," she blurts out, not failing to notice the way Quinn's breath hitches. "I do care about you…so much…as a friend," she explains, snuffing out the last remaining spark of hope in Quinn's eyes.

"I can't be your friend right now, Rachel." Quinn sidesteps her, heading for the door.

"That's not fair," Rachel shouts, hot on her heels.

Quinn chuckles resentfully. "Life isn't fair. Believe me."

"So you're just going back to hating me again?" Rachel asks accusingly, bracing her arm against the cold metal of the sliding door.

Quinn rolls her eyes. "God, don't be so dramatic. I don't hate you, Rachel. I never did," she tells her sadly, "but I can't go back to making small talk about our classes and listening to you gush about Brody, or cry over Finn, or whatever new guy comes into you life." Her eyes flutter closed, and she looks away, staring at some undefined spot over Rachel's left ear. "At least, not right now. Maybe…someday," she offers with a little shrug.

Rachel latches on to that word like a lifeline. "Someday, like, a few weeks…or…"

"I don't know yet," Quinn interrupts, her voice teetering on the edge of frustration.

Rachel nods once, dropping her eyes to Quinn's collarbone. "I ruined it, didn't I?" she asks in a small voice. "We were finally friends, but because I'm…I'm a needy drunk," she bites out in self-admonishment, "I took advantage of you. And I don't even remember what I did, Quinn," she chokes out, desperately meeting hazel eyes.

Quinn stares down at her for long, tense seconds, and then, in an instant, she steps forward and presses Rachel's back against the door, threading her fingers into dark hair and dipping her head to steal a kiss. Her lips are soft, but the kiss is hard and demanding, and Rachel gasps in surprise, only to taste Quinn's tongue as it invades her mouth. It's over almost as quickly as it begins, and Quinn pulls back, leaving Rachel sagging against the door in shock.

"What the hell?" she mutters breathlessly.

"At least you'll remember that one," Quinn says, shifting her bag higher on her shoulder and tugging the door handle until it begins to slide open. Rachel scrambles to get her balance, silently staring at Quinn through blurry eyes as she moves into the doorway. Quinn pauses before she goes, turning her head to the side and barely glancing back. "Goodbye, Rachel," she whispers before she disappears.

Rachel can't move from her spot. She stands with one hand on the door, staring at the empty space where Quinn had just been until all she sees is a watery mess of tears.

She isn't sure how long she stays there before the door slowly slides closed beneath her touch, and she's wrapped up in a comforting embrace. She breathes in Kurt's familiar scent as she falls apart in his arms, sobbing into his chest. He rubs gentles circles over her back and tries to soothe her with whispers of reassurance. At some point, he guides her to the futon, and Rachel curls into him.

As much as she wants to remember exactly what happened last night, the shock of Quinn's admission has worn off enough now to throw Rachel's mind into a tailspin of questions. Exactly how long has Quinn wanted her? When did her feelings change? Why didn't Rachel notice anything? Were they ever friends at all, or was Quinn just being nice because she secretly wanted something more from Rachel?

"Shh, sweetie, you're okay," Kurt coos into Rachel's hair.

She sniffles against his shoulder, a feeling of dread sinking into her stomach. "H-how much did you hear?"

Kurt's eyes dart away uncomfortably. "These walls aren't exactly soundproofed."

Rachel tenses against him, jerking away and drawing her knees up to her chest. "Oh, my God," she whispers, burying her face in her arms.

"Honestly, I'm not entirely certain what I heard, Rachel. I'm currently functioning on way less than my full eight hours of beauty sleep. The shoot ran late yesterday, and Isabelle invited me to an impromptu party with the photographer, which I might say, was fabulous," he gushes with an excited little grin.

Rachel turns her head to the side, smiling sadly and wishing that she could share his enthusiasm, sit back and ask him to describe every detail of the experience, but Quinn has ruined that for her.

Kurt sees her expression and sobers considerably. "I didn't stumble home until after three, and I assumed that you and Quinn were fast asleep. I'm not sure at what point in your…discussion," he says carefully, "I actually woke up, but I couldn't help overhearing the tail end of it. Although, I confess that I'm at a loss of how to process what I did hear."

Rachel sighs raggedly, squeezing her eyes closed. "So am I," she confesses brokenly. "Kurt…I…I think really messed up."

"Tell me everything," he encourages, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

She hesitates, uncertain if she wants to attempt to tell Kurt what happened when she's still not completely clear on the details herself. "I took Quinn to Callbacks yesterday," she begins. From there, Rachel proceeds to tell him what she does remember from the night—, which still isn't very much—meeting Brody, having a few drinks, laughing, and singing. Well, Rachel knows she'd been singing anyway, and she has a strong sense that they'd all had a good time, but she admits that she doesn't recall how she and Quinn had gotten home or anything that followed. "I only know that we woke up this morning in…a compromising position, and Quinn…she…apparently we crossed some lines last night that never should have been crossed."

Kurt's eyes are wide and round, and his mouth is open in soundless surprise, until, "Rachel Berry!" You had sex with Quinn?" he shouts, which does nothing to help Rachel's lingering headache.

"I don't know," she admits in a small voice. "I don't think so." She wants to believe that she'd know if they had actually gone that far—that surely her body would betray some evidence of having been intimate with Quinn. Does that even happen with another woman? "We woke up mostly dressed, but at the very least, I know we…we kissed." Rachel knows that much because the kiss that Quinn gave her before she left felt far too familiar to be their first.

Kurt purses his lips and tilts his head thoughtfully. "I guess our little glee club had more rainbows and unicorns than I ever suspected."

Rachel scowls at him. "This isn't something to joke about, Kurt. I've just ruined a very important friendship because I got drunk and clingy and stupidly decided to get my college experimentation out of the way with Quinn, of all people!"

"Are you sure that's all it was?" Kurt asks carefully.

"Yes," Rachel snaps. "I'm one hundred percent heterosexual—much the same way that Blaine is one hundred percent homosexual despite having enjoyed a short, alcohol-induced dalliance with me." She fully remembers the encounter and the brief, little crush that she'd entertained. It isn't one of her finer moments, but to be fair, Blaine had been mildly encouraging.

Kurt considers this, eventually nodding. "Well, you typically have been the most boy crazy girl I've ever met," he muses, and Rachel glares at him. Kurt chuckles and squeezes her shoulder. "And you really cannot hold your alcohol."

Rachel groans and drops her head onto Kurt's shoulder. "I hate this," she whispers. "It feels like a bad dream that I can't wake up from. Yesterday was so perfect until I ruined it."

"Am I wrong to assume that Quinn wasn't as eager to dismiss your encounter?"

Rachel whimpers, closing her eyes against the memory of Quinn's face. It's not the muted hurt that she sees, or the leashed anger, or the eventual sad acceptance—it's that moment before everything had gone to hell, when Quinn's eyes had twinkled with carefree happiness, and her mouth had been curved into a flirty smile, and she'd radiated a quiet contentment that Rachel can't ever remember seeing. She feels like the biggest bitch in the universe for ripping that away from Quinn and burning it into ash.

"Oh, honey," Kurt whispers, magically producing a handkerchief to dab at Rachel's cheeks. She hadn't even realized that she's crying again, but she takes the soft cotton from his hand and gently dabs under her eyes.

"I told you I messed up," she reminds him woefully. "She…Quinn claims that she has feelings for me, Kurt." She still can't believe it's true—not after all the time they'd spent at odds over Finn. "That's not…I don't even know how to process this."

Kurt hums thoughtfully. "I have to admit, I'm not entirely surprised." Rachel jerks her head up, staring at him with a questioning frown, and his lips quirk into a half-smile. "I started having some suspicions about our Ms. Fabray around the time she vehemently objected to your hasty engagement."

Rachel shakes her head in disbelief. "But why would you think that? If anything, I thought that she might still have feelings for Finn."

"Except that Finn wasn't the person that Quinn was constantly staring at," he says with a sad smile. "You just never noticed because you could only see Finn."

Rachel feels sick. She drops her feet back to the floor and leans forward with her arms crossed over her stomach. If it's true, how could Kurt have noticed something like that and she didn't? She hates herself for it. Using Quinn for whatever reason her drunken mind had fixated on last night was bad enough, but to do it when Quinn actually has some kind of feelings for her is unforgivable. Rachel is the worst kind of friend—selfish and inattentive. Quinn probably hates her now, despite what she claimed before she left. And now she doesn't want to talk to her anymore.

Rachel presses her fingertips into her forehead over her right eyebrow in a poor attempt at easing the pounding misery in her head. "How do I fix it?" she mumbles despondently.

"Oh, sweetie, I don't think you can."

She bites down hard, clenching her jaw and squeezing her eyes shut to keep a fresh wave of tears at bay. "That's not acceptable. There has to be something I can do to make this right."

Kurt raises his eyebrows, and his expression falls into one that Rachel recognizes instantly—the one that says he's silently judging her. She hates that look, and it puts her on the defensive before he even opens his mouth to say, "You can't force Quinn to be okay with whatever happened, Rachel. I may not have caught every word of your argument this morning, but I distinctly heard her tell you that she needs time. If you truly value your friendship with her and want a chance in hell of keeping it, then you need to respect her decision."

He's right, and she knows it—that doesn't mean she likes it, and she certainly won't be giving him the satisfaction of admitting it. "I'm not feeling very well," she says instead, averting her eyes. "I think I'm going to go lie down."

He frowns when she stands—a bit shakily since her legs feel like Jell-O. "Rachel?"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," she tells him flatly. She can see that he's truly concerned about her, but she really just wants to go into her bedroom, crawl under her covers, close her eyes, and make this all disappear—for a little while, at least. The idea of talking about Quinn, or Quinn's feelings, or even her own state of mind makes her want to throw up. "I…I'll be okay," she promises. "I think I just need some time to myself." She's perfectly aware that she just echoed Quinn—she's not sure whether to laugh or cry.

She pads across the apartment, slipping into her room and making sure the curtains are pulled tight, and her hands fist into the material as a hazy memory flashes into her mind.

_They stumbled into the bedroom wrapped around one another. Rachel nearly pulled her curtain down when she yanked it closed, and only Quinn's arms around her waist kept her from falling. She laughed, loud and obnoxious as she gasped for breath and felt Quinn's body shake against her in reciprocal laughter. Quinn was smiling so widely—free and unguarded and breathtaking. Rachel felt a tug deep in her belly. Quinn was gorgeous._

_Her laughter died instantly, and she tackled Quinn as well as she could despite the fact that she could barely stand. She threw her arms around Quinn's neck and kissed her cheek, her throat, her chin, and her mouth—every part that her lips could reach. Quinn moaned, staggering backward until her legs hit the bed, and they toppled onto the mattress in a tangle of limbs._

Rachel gasps, stumbling back and sinking onto the edge of her bed as she twists her fingers into the sheets. She gulps in mouthfuls of air as her stomach flips and churns while she's assaulted with the full realization that Quinn was telling the truth about last night. Rachel _had_ wanted her—whether it was the vodka, or a weird planetary alignment, or some subliminal message communicated through overexposure to the open-minded theater culture shared by her classmates—but it wasn't real. Rachel doesn't feel that way about Quinn. She _can't._

She just wants her friend back.

Rachel collapses back against the mattress with tears trailing down over her cheeks. When she turns onto her side, the scent of citrus tickles her nose, and she weeps. Her mind won't shut down. She keeps thinking about the past—about Finn and their relationship and the way it so often came back to Quinn in one way or another. She thinks of so many things that she should have done differently. It's the worst kind of self-flagellation, surrounded by the scent of Quinn and a thousand regrets.

She watches the clock on her nightstand tick away the time until the numbers melt into unrecognizable shapes.

_The room wa__s __dark, filled only with the noises Quinn made. They were so sexy—throaty groans and husky murmurs of nonsensical words. Quinn did everything beautifully—Rachel had always thought so—and this was no exception. It used to piss her off, but now she was feeling an entirely different spectrum of emotions. Rachel had always secretly wanted to top Quinn Fabray. Not like she was now—more metaphorically because metaphors were still important to her—but topping her physically felt good too, and not much else mattered to Rachel in that moment._

_Hands explored under shirts, and Quinn's naked thigh pressed into just the right place between Rachel's legs, and their lips learned every texture they could find on one another's bodies. Touching Quinn's skin was like touching a flame, and Rachel wanted to know if she burned that hotly everywhere. She lightly scratched her nails down over Quinn's belly and didn't stop. Her fingers danced against cotton, dipping down to discover liquid fire, and Quinn cried out in the most beautiful way as her back arched off the mattress._

Rachel's eyes snap open and she nearly chokes on her own breath as the wispy edges of her dream—her _memory_—take on a more solid form. She must have napped for a while, because suddenly it's past noon. When the time fully registers, Rachel stares at her cell phone where is rests mockingly beside her clock and wages a silent war with herself, but in the end, she surrenders to her base nature, grabbing the phone and rapidly typing out a text.

_**I know you asked me to give you time, but can you please at least let me know that you got back to Yale safely. ~R **_

She waits thirty minutes for a response before she forces herself to accept that Quinn isn't going to answer her. Twenty minutes later, she sends another message that only reads:

_**I'm sorry.**_

_xx_

Kurt tries only once to get Rachel to talk out her feelings about what happened, claiming it will make her feel better. She tells him the only thing that will make her feel better is to just forget it ever happened at all. She may also make an unfortunate derogatory comment regarding his former propensity for gossip and accuse him of pressuring her the same way he warned _her_ not to do to Quinn. The subject is effectively closed.

Rachel throws herself back into her quest to win Cassandra July's good opinion and the pursuit of any potential role that comes to her attention. She hears about an Off-Broadway production and decides to audition. She's halfway through typing an excited email to Quinn before she remembers that Quinn doesn't want to hear from her. She stares at her screen for five minutes before exiting out and closing the lid of the laptop.

She decides to tell Brody about it instead. She really does like him, and she's _attracted _to him—he's very handsome, and he has a nice smile, but mostly he's been really nice to her when she's needed him most. That doesn't stop her from wanting to slap him when he mentions Saturday night and inquires after Quinn.

"She's really protective of you," he tells her with an easy-going grin. "Those are the kind of friends you want to keep close."

Rachel can't choke down the short bark of uncomfortable laughter that escapes her. Her eyes widen, and she purses her lips, taking a shallow breath through her nose before she grits out, "Yeah, Quinn is…great. So, there's this audition," she begins, telling him all about _The Glass Menagerie. _She's happy when Brody encourages her, even after Cassie strolls over and tries to crush her spirit like a bug. To tell her that she's not tough enough and doesn't have the wounds to make the cut! Cassie doesn't have any idea how wounded Rachel is—_has_ been.

She convinces Kurt to help her practice for her dance audition. He's helping her stretch in the studio when he gets an update from Tina about the McKinley fall musical. They're doing _Grease_ this year, and Kurt seems excited—well, excited about the backstage gossip he's getting.

"But it doesn't have anything to do with us," Rachel reminds him, reclining on her elbows while he plays with his phone. Kurt holds it up to his chin and pouts. "No, we're not," she says, scrambling to sit up. "We are not going to see it.¹" Her life is complicated enough right now without adding Finn Hudson back into the mix.

Cassandra chooses that moment to breeze in with her smug attitude, interrupting their practice session and their conversation. Rachel wishes she could slap her hand over Kurt's mouth when he actually starts to tell Cassie all about the musical, especially when she suggests that they should go see it. "If you're both not over your boyfriends, it's the perfect opportunity for closure.¹"

"I have closure,¹" Rachel insists, and it feels less like a lie than it would have two weeks ago—kissing Quinn has done that much for her at least.

When Kurt says, "I'm going,¹" Rachel knows that there's no avoiding the visit. Maybe it could be a good thing. Obviously, for all her insistence to the contrary, her breakup with Finn is still affecting her—magnifying the normal stresses of college, she's certain—otherwise what happened with Quinn wouldn't have happened. In fact, she was probably projecting her lingering feelings for Finn onto Quinn precisely because of their convoluted history. So she takes Cassie up on her offer of frequent flier miles to fund the excursion back to Lima.

Being back at McKinley is strange. She and Kurt reminisce as they revisit their old lockers, and they hug Mercedes and see Tina and Blaine—and then there's Finn. He looks good in his suit, but he's wearing a mix of confusion and hurt on his face. Rachel has a weird moment where she cattily thinks that all of Finn's expressions are mixed with confusion, and she isn't sure where it comes from.

If she's being honest, she expects to feel overwhelmed with love for him. A part of her is even hoping to feel that way, but those familiar butterflies don't come, and neither does the crushing weight on her heart that she'd grown so used to since she'd met him. Instead, she feels regret and a distant affection for the boy who was her first love. Their conversation is stilted and awkward, and even Finn admits, "This is really, really weird, but we have a lot of history between us, and I just want to say...it's really cool you came to see our show." He glances away with a frown, but says, "I'm pretty proud of it,¹" and Rachel feels kind of terrible because he should be happy and excited right now. He's doing something good—something productive all on his own that she hasn't needed to help him with or motivate him to finish—but her presence here is ruining that for him.

She's been doing a lot of ruining things lately.

Rachel tries to enjoy the show. There's a moment when the bittersweet nostalgia overwhelms her, and she imagines what it might have been like to be up there performing with Finn, but then there's also a moment when she imagines Quinn playing Rizzo opposite her Sandy, and Quinn's absence here tonight stings more than it should. Everything is so wrong.

Kurt is standing next to her, distractedly clapping for the ovation, but the bulk of his attention is on Rachel. "Are you okay?" he asks in concern. Rachel nods, but she feels completely overwhelmed and so out of place, so she excuses herself, shuffling out of the row and heading for the back of the auditorium.

She ends up in the bathroom. The moment she walks in and leans against the sink, she knows that she's made yet another bad decision. She's standing in the same bathroom in which Quinn had surprised her with the Metro North passes. Rachel's throat burns, and her eyes start to water. She digs out her cell phone and presses the speed dial without thinking. It rings unanswered, going straight into Quinn's voicemail, and Rachel ends the call with a broken sob because she's lost the right to call Quinn in search of comfort.

Her hand is trembling when she redials, and she sniffles, managing to get her emotions a little more under control as she waits for Brody to answer—only he doesn't.

"Hello Schwimmer. How's Ohio?¹"

"Cassandra?" Rachel freezes in muted shock. "I'm calling for Brody¹."

"He's in the shower, soaping up his incredibly chiseled physique.¹"

Rachel is stunned as she listens to Cassie ramble on about Brody and...and _sex_ with Brody, until she can't listen to another word and disconnects the call. She feels like she's been sucker punched, and then punched three more times for good measure. She'd thought Brody actually cared about her—that he wanted a relationship—but apparently she was wrong. She's been wrong about so many things. Why should she even be surprised that she can add another misjudgment to her ever-growing list?

She curves her fingers around the edge of the sink and stares into the mirror at her puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks. She thinks that she might have had more practice at crying in the last few months than Quinn—and of course, that thought invites even more tears. She's lost, confused, and so angry with herself. Twisting the handle of the sink, Rachel lets the water run cold and splashes it on her face in an attempt to wash away her misery. It doesn't work.

Rachel makes her way out of the bathroom with the intention of finding Kurt and going home, but she isn't lucky enough to find him before Finn finds her.

"Have you been crying?¹" he asks in concern.

"No, I'm fine,¹" she says with her best attempt at a smile. She doesn't have any desire to have another awkward conversation with Finn right now, so she turns around, hoping that he'll just let her go.

"For two years, I was the guy you came to with every little problem," he says, stopping Rachel before she can walk away. "Are we just gonna pretend we're not even friends anymore?¹"

Leave it to Finn to deliver her a low blow without even knowing—it seems like she's losing friends left and right. She turns to look at him, lifting her hand in frustration. "I just...I shouldn't have come here. It's too weird.¹"

"Then why'd you come?¹"

"For Kurt, and for you,¹" she admits. _For closure_, she thinks, unwilling to consider just how much what had happened with Quinn had influenced her decision to be here. So she compliments him on the show, and he thanks her, and for a few moments it feels almost comfortable again. It feels like they can go back to being friends—and if it's possible for them after almost getting married, then surely it will be possible with Quinn.

Then Finn says, "Now, will you tell me what you're so upset about?¹" and the feeling disappears.

Rachel swallows down the pang of heartache and shakes her head. "No, I'd rather not.¹"

"Were you crying about me?¹" he asks, leaning forward.

Rachel look at the floor, unable to meet his eyes. "I wasn't crying about you¹," she stutters out. While it's true that a few of her tears tonight have been over Finn—or what they used to have anyway—the majority of them were for people she really shouldn't be crying over.

"Oh," Finn says, flashing a pained smile, "it's about him. Brody, isn't it?" _And Quinn,_ Rachel adds in her head. "I just didn't think you'd move on that fast,¹" he mutters in disbelief.

"You don't know that,¹" she argues, frustrated that Finn claims to know her so well after everything he'd done wrong at the end of their relationship—everything she'd told him about last month. There are things about her that he doesn't know at all—things she doesn't fully know about _herself_. Wouldn't Finn be surprised to find some of them out?

He tells her that she has four different kinds of crying, and proceeds to list them all, ending with, "crying over a guy, which I know very well, because it used to be reserved for me.¹"

He's wrong. There's a fifth kind—the confused, regretful, hopeless kind—and Rachel has discovered that it's reserved solely for Quinn Fabray. "Well," she breathes, flashing a bitter smile and spreading her arms in frustration, "I told you we shouldn't talk about this.¹"

"Well, maybe we shouldn't talk about anything anymore,¹" he counters.

It hurts. It does. She can't deny it. She's just not sure that it hurts more than when Quinn said it to her.

"Yeah, I think that's good,¹" she says with a determined nod. She wants Finn to get over her—to move on—the same way she wants it for Quinn. Time and distance.

"You know I don't really know what's going to happen between us, but I know that you used to be the guy that would make me feel like the most special girl in the whole world, and," she whispers, taking stock of her feelings and realizing with a new sense of clarity, "it doesn't feel that way anymore." Finn flinches, looking away in hurt, but Rachel can't seem to stop her words. "Now it just feels sad, and confusing, and the worst part is that it doesn't even really feel that bad anymore.¹"

Finn pushes his hands deeper into his pockets. "And whatever happened with this Brody guy made you cry, and this doesn't.¹"

Rachel blinks, glancing down with an imperceptible nod. It's better for Finn to believe that it's only Brody—it's better for Rachel to believe that—but deep down she knows that it's so much more complicated.

She's relieved when Kurt interrupts them, telling Finn that Mr. Schuester wants to see him. He mutters a stilted, "goodbye," and walks away with his head down. Rachel tells Kurt, "I want to go home¹."

"I thought this was home¹?" he asks bewildered.

"It doesn't feel like it anymore.¹"

Later, when they're in Kurt's car (which is really Burt's SUV), he asks her, "What happened?"

Rachel sighs, staring determinedly out the window. "I don't want to talk about it."

"There are a lot of things you don't want to talk about lately," Kurt says.

She turns to him with a scowl. "Can you please not bring that up?"

"I care about you, Rachel. You're very clearly upset, and I don't think it's completely tied to seeing Finn again."

"Brody slept with Cassandra July, okay?" she snaps, crossing her arms. "I was feeling weird being back here, and I called Brody because," _Quinn didn't answer_, but Rachel doesn't admit that. Her voice wavers a little when she says, "I just wanted someone to remind me that I belong in New York. That I'm meant for bigger things than," she pauses, waving her hand across the windshield, "Lima, Ohio."

"And you needed to call _Brody_ for that?" Kurt asks suspiciously.

"Yes." Rachel slumps back in her seat with a huff. "Clearly, he isn't who I thought he was."

Kurt's hands tighten around the steering wheel, and he hums thoughtfully. He even manages to stay silent for a full minute before he finally breaks. "Okay, are we not going to address the elephant in the car?" When Rachel turns to look at him with a frown, he shakes his head in exasperation. "You can hardly be angry at Brody for having sex with another woman when you're not actually dating him, _and,_" he stresses, "when there is a very high probability that you did the exact same thing."

Rachel winces, slamming her eyes shut. "I told you that I don't want to talk about that!" she shouts. The truth is, those drunken memories have been gradually coming back to her, and she really doesn't want to tell Kurt how high that probability is climbing.

Kurt eases the car to a stop in front of the Berry house, turning sideways in his seat to face Rachel. "Were you really crying over Brody?" he asks gently.

"Yes," she admits, "but also because I miss Quinn. Is that what you want to hear? Because I do, Kurt. She's always been there to...to tell me all the hard truths that I don't want to hear, and now she's just," Rachel lets out a humorless laugh, rubbing at the back of her neck, "not answering her phone or her text messages or...coming back to Lima to visit her friends."

"She asked you for time, Rachel," Kurt reminds her with disappointment coloring his tone. "You need to respect that."

"And you need to respect the fact that I'm doing the best that I can," she accuses, wrenching the door handle open and getting out of the car. "I've lost three friendships in less than two weeks, Kurt. Don't make me lose another one." She slams the door in his face before he can answer and storms inside her fathers' house.

To his credit, Kurt is on her doorstep bright and early the next morning with two coffees from the Lima Bean and an apologetic smile. He doesn't mention Quinn, or Brody, or Finn, and he takes her suitcase and hands it off to his father, who's driving them both to the airport in Columbus. The only thing he says is, "You're not going to lose me Rachel. We may argue occasionally and try to out-diva one another on a regular basis, but I'm not going anywhere."

He wraps an arm around her shoulder and squeezes, and Rachel gratefully melts into his side. At least she has one person that she can rely on when everything else is such a mess.

* * *

¹_Glee 4x06, Glease_

* * *

**Author's Note:** So part two got very long, so I broke it in half. This is now a three part story. As always, feedback is appreciated but never demanded.


	3. And Come To Love

**Part III: And Come To Love**

* * *

As it turns out, Rachel doesn't get the part in _The Glass Menagerie. _Kurt consoles her with a musical comedy marathon, chocolate covered strawberries, and a bottle of wine. It should be enough, but Rachel is feeling some of that same hopeless despondency that had washed over her earlier in the year, and she still has the Winter Showcase to prepare for. After Kurt goes to bed, Rachel sits on the futon staring blankly at the screen of her laptop and swirling the last drops of wine in her glass.

The temptation to email Quinn is so strong. She's been good about not contacting her—for the most part. After all, that one little text that only said, _**I miss you**_, that she'd sent after her argument with Kurt in Lima two days ago can hardly be considered (significant) contact. Rachel reaches for the nearly empty bottle of wine and tops off her glass with the last of it. Her hand slows as she tips the now empty bottle straight, and she closes her eyes, hugging the cool glass to her chest. For the first time, she actually wills the memory to come.

"_We should stop," Quinn whispered, pulling Rachel's attention from the explosions of colors painting the back of her eyelids and the wonderful tingles low in her belly. She didn't appreciate the interruption._

"_The fireworks are too pretty," Rachel mumbled as she stared up at Quinn's perfect features—perfect even with the little frown on those pretty, pink lips. Quinn's mouth was so talented. Rachel's mouth was talented too. She wanted to keep exploring that talent together, so she curled her palm around Quinn's neck and dragged her down into another kiss._

_Quinn was so good at kissing. She nibbled on Rachel's lower lip and teased it with the tip of her tongue while her hands wandered restlessly over Rachel's hips. Rachel threaded her fingers into Quinn's hair. She really liked it long. She'd liked it short too. Actually, she'd liked it almost every way that Quinn had ever worn it except for the ponytail. Rachel really hadn't liked the ponytail at all—though the cheerios' uniform that went with it had been kind of appealing. She decided that she liked Quinn's hair this way the best—all tousled and messy from her fingers._

_She tugged Quinn closer, fusing their mouths together. The taste of her was so addictive, like sunshine and summer and honey. Well, the honey might be her chap stick, but Rachel didn't care—she just wanted more of that unique flavor, so she took it._

_Her fingers reluctantly left Quinn's silky hair in order to trail down over her pale throat. Quinn moaned into Rachel's mouth and tightened her own fingers into Rachel's thighs. The sound was like music to Rachel's ears. She needed to hear that sound again, so she stroked tiny circles over Quinn's pulse point with the pad of her thumb while she gently scraped her teeth over Quinn's bottom lip. Quinn moaned louder, hiked Rachel's leg up over her hip, and pressed closer until it was Rachel's turn to moan._

_She shifted restlessly beneath Quinn, pulling her closer with her leg and her arms. If she could have figured out how to crawl inside of her right then, she would have. Quinn groaned low and deep, and she tore her mouth away from Rachel's lips, gasping for air before she was drawn right back. She nuzzled into Rachel's throat, tracing her tongue across the skin, and Rachel curled her nails into Quinn's back, gasping, "You make me see stars. No…s-super…supernovas," she mumbled, tipping her head further back against the cushion._

_Rachel thought that she felt Quinn smile against her skin. "I just see you," she murmured, her voice vibrating against Rachel's pulse._

_Rachel's heart was pounding, and her head was spinning, and her body was warm everywhere—inside and out. She wondered if Quinn felt the same way, so she slipped her fingers just barely under the hem of Quinn's shirt, reveling in the heat of soft, bare skin against her fingertips. "We should…go…oh," she moaned at feel of Quinn suckling her neck. "Oh, my God," she cried, arching up into Quinn and clawing at the hem of her shirt until she could push the material away enough to feel more of Quinn's naked back. _

_Quinn shuddered against her before she raised her head to stare down at Rachel intently. "We should stop," she raggedly whispered for the second time._

_Rachel struggled to catch her breath, feeling dizzy and disoriented. They should stop. She wasn't even sure what they were doing. This wasn't something Rachel was supposed to want. She'd wanted Finn—with his bulky form, calloused hands, chapped lips, and rough jaw. She wanted Brody—with his perfect smile and washboard abs. But she also wanted to taste honey-flavored lips and thread her hands into soft, silky hair. "I want you," she mumbled mindlessly._

_Quinn's breath hitched, and her eyes fluttered shut. "Kurt could walk in," she worried._

"_Bedroom," Rachel suggested, fascinated by the column of Quinn's throat. She stretched up and flattened her tongue against the spot where Quinn's neck met her shoulder. _

"_Yesss," Quinn hissed._

"No," Rachel whispers, opening her eyes to stare at the laptop again. She slams the empty bottle onto the coffee table and takes a long drink from her glass before setting it aside more gently. She pulls the laptop closer and opens up her email.

She's certain that it's completely inelegant and certainly full of uncharacteristic typos. She tries to keep it short and to the point, hoping that might be better received than her typical long, rambling emails. She starts with an apology—well, two apologies, since one is specifically for contacting Quinn when she was asked not to—and then Rachel accepts her share of the responsibility for what happened that night, admits to being confused by what she now remembers, and tells Quinn that she understands why she doesn't want to talk to her anymore.

Rachel begins to add how much she misses Quinn and really wishes that she could ask her for advice, and how her life is pretty depressing right now, but then she thinks better of it and backspaces through everything relating to how this affects Rachel. Instead, Rachel tells Quinn that she hopes they can get their friendship back. _**Whenever you're ready**_, she ends, and hits send before she can think better of it.

The next morning, there's a reply waiting for her.

_**I'm going home for Thanksgiving. I think it would be best if we don't see one another. I'm not ready yet.**_

Rachel blinks back her tears after reading it and tries to convince herself that the "yet" at the end means that Quinn will eventually be ready to renew their friendship.

She mentions Thanksgiving to Kurt. They'd already been on the wall about going home due to their lack of funds, but Quinn's email tips them over, and they agree to stay in New York. NYADA's break is short compared to other schools anyway, so Rachel's last class is on Tuesday, and it happens to be her dance class. She's mentally prepared herself to see Cassie—to not let on that the woman's head games have affected Rachel at all—but instead, Brody shows up and announces that he's taking over.

Rachel is still upset about the whole thing, and she doesn't feel like dealing with him right now, so she heads for her bag and bends down to pack it up.

"Is there a problem?¹" Brody asks.

Rachel puffs out a breath, wondering why everyone keeps asking her that. "Well you know, everyone here pays, like, thirty-thousand dollars a year to be taught by a professional and not a TA, so,¹" she trails off, jamming her water bottle into the bag.

"I'm sorry. Are you angry at me about something?¹"

Rachel stands up and turns around to face him. "You mean besides the fact that you slept with Cassie?¹"

"And why do you care who I sleep with?¹"

"Do I really need to answer that?¹" she asks incredulously, ignoring the little voice in her head that sounds too much like Kurt reminding her that she really doesn't have the right to care.

"Hey, I'm the one who came on to you, remember? You broke off our date to see another guy,¹" he reminds her.

"Yeah, well that's over now,¹" and it feels closer to the truth than ever before.

"So, I'm supposed to have retroactively known that was going to happen and not slept with Cassie?¹" he asks lightly before turning to call the class into session.

Brody grabs Rachel's hand when the music starts and pulls her into a foxtrot. "Look, you're not in high school anymore. We're adults making adult choices. You made yourself unavailable. Don't be that crazy girl," he warns, causing Rachel to snap her gaze to him, "who expects people to read her mind.¹"

"Well, I'm sorry, but you don't have to be a mind reader to know that she is my mortal enemy," she hisses—well, this year anyway. "Did it at least suck?¹"

"Are you kidding? It was amazing. Have you seen her ass?¹" he asks lecherously, and Rachel's lips twitch despite her ire. She has seen Cassie's ass, and she can't deny that it is very nice. _Quinn's is better_, whispers through her thoughts unbidden.

"Look," Brody says, leading Rachel into a dip, "I know we're friends, and I don't want to hurt you," he lifts her back up and continues moving her through their dance steps, "so it won't happen again. Okay?¹"

He seems sincere and rational, damn it. Rachel isn't used to guys acting this way. _She's_ not used to acting this way, but part of being in New York is leaving behind that clingy, desperate girl that she used to be, so she nods and whispers, "Okay,¹" before she gives him a little smile.

"What are you doing for Thanksgiving?¹" he asks, easily changing the subject and moving them past their little spat. This maturity thing is a nice change from what she's used to, so she tells him that she and Kurt are having an orphan's Thanksgiving here in the city. After landing a joking insult to her cooking skills—and okay, so she caught one little dinner on fire, would no one ever let her forget that?—he offers to come over and cook for them

"Yeah, that would be great,¹" she says, certain that Kurt will be grateful for the extra help in the kitchen.

Brody grins, cocking his head to the side. "Do you mind if I bring Cassie?¹"

"Oh, shut up," she smiles and grips his hand, straightening her posture and pushing him back into motion, "and just dance with me.¹"

The next day, she and Kurt brave the local supermarket to buy supplies. As it turns out, Kurt had invited his boss to dinner as well, so he's actually grateful for the addition of Brody and his cooking skills, especially when Brody provides them with a list to work from so that they're not shopping blind. They both make a mental note to never, ever go shopping the day before Thanksgiving ever again—it's insane, and they both get shoved aside and cursed at by rabid last minute shoppers so many times that they lose count.

They eventually haul their groceries home and dance around one another in the kitchen as they put things away. Then Kurt pauses to glance at his phone. "Ooh, more updates from Tina on Sectionals," he trills, sinking down into the chair while he begins to read them out loud. Rachel tries to smile and act casually, but her heart is beating a little more quickly as she anticipates a mention of Quinn.

Kurt laughs. "Oh, Santana got assigned to mentor Marley. Poor girl," Kurt comments. "And apparently, the Unholy Trinity graced them all with an impromptu performance." He glances up at Rachel almost guiltily, undoubtedly gauging her reaction.

Maybe her smile trembles a bit, but she's happy that Quinn is there with her...her _friends_, having a good time and singing again. "It's okay, Kurt." Rachel slides the can of cranberry sauce into the cupboard, fingers tracing the label absently as she imagines the taste of cranberry and vodka. "Did...did Tina say anything else?"

"Hmm, oh yes, let's see, she says...oh," Kurt stops abruptly, and Rachel turns to look at him, noticing the odd look on his face.

"What?" she prompts.

Kurt shakes his head and places his phone screen down on the table. "Nothing. It isn't important."

"Kurt," she growls, taking a step forward and reaching for the phone herself, but Kurt quickly slaps his palm over it and slides it closer to his body. "Tell me," Rachel demands.

He sighs, shaking his head. "Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"How can I know that unless you tell me?" she asks irritably.

Kurt purses his lips and nods. "Well, Santana told Brittany, who told Tina, that Quinn is," he pauses again.

Rachel leans on the table, glaring at him. Her mind is busily completing that sentence in a dozen unpleasant ways. "What?" she snaps again.

"Quinn is dating her thirty-five year old psychology professor," he rushes out.

Rachel stares at him stupidly before she barks out a laugh. "Get serious."

"He's married," Kurt says very seriously, and Rachel's laughter dies. She sinks down into the chair beside him.

"But she...she said..."

"That she wants to move on," Kurt reminds her gently.

Rachel isn't sure how she's feeling right now. Quinn is dating a married man. Woman? She doesn't even know—she supposes it could be either—but she can't make her mouth form the words to ask. Why would Quinn...? A married professor? She's so much better than that! She's young and smart and beautiful, and she can have _anyone_.

_Not anyone, Rachel_, she reminds herself. _She can't have who she originally wanted._

Kurt places a hand over hers on the table, ducking his head to catch her eyes. "Moving on is a good thing. Admittedly, it would have been better with someone slightly less midlife crisis-y," he muses with a little grin that Rachel doesn't return. "You should be relieved."

He's right. She s_hould _be. Quinn is dating an older, married man—or _something_—so she's obviously not pining over Rachel in misery. Instead, she's home for Thanksgiving, visiting all her—_their_—friends, but she still doesn't want to see or talk to Rachel. It isn't fair, and Rachel isn't relieved at all. She's angry.

"You _are _relieved, right?" Kurt checks with a raised eyebrow.

Rachel flashes an insincere smile. "Immensely." She rises from her chair with a dramatic flourish. "If Quinn Fabray wants to ruin her life by dating yet another person who is obviously absolutely wrong for her, then I'm _happy _for her. I have Brody, after all, and he's _perfect _for me."

She ignores Kurt's look of surprise and turns back to the counter, haphazardly shoving the loaf of bread into the bread box and smashing it slightly in the process. When Kurt tries to continue the conversation, she claims to have forgotten to buy the brown sugar and makes a hasty retreat out into the chilly November air, shoving her hands in her pockets as she stalks through her neighborhood and vowing not to care that Quinn is obviously back to making horrible, self-destructive decisions again.

On Thanksgiving Day, Rachel doesn't think about Quinn. She and Kurt watch the parade on television, promising each other that they'll actually go stand in the crowd one day and see it live. When Brody arrives, Rachel focuses her attention on him. He's gorgeous and charming, and he can cook. He even offers to teach her, showing her how to baste the turkey—and really, it's a little disheartening to be touching a dead bird, but having an attractive, _available_ man flirt with her while she's doing it is really nice. She's supposed to feel this way.

"When you two are done using that turkey as a courtship device, would you put it the oven? Because it's almost five o'clock,¹" Kurt points out. He's been looking at her strangely all day—well, since yesterday really—but it's gotten more pronounced since Brody arrived.

Rachel chooses to ignore it, at least while they have company, and soon enough their apartment is full of music and people—Isabelle brings some friends—and it becomes a spontaneous party. It's only much later, when everyone is gone, and she and Kurt are cleaning up, that Kurt asks her, "Are you sure that you know what you're doing with Brody?"

She doesn't ask what he means by that, she just says, "I'm moving on, Kurt. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?" She tosses her rag onto the counter and leans back, crossing her arms. "He's single and interested. I'm single and getting over...Finn. It doesn't have to be anything else."

Kurt stares at her for a long moment, eventually nodding in silent acceptance.

_xx_

Rachel wins the Winter Showcase. She kisses Brody again, and it's good. His lips are a little too firm, and maybe he's a little too tall, but she's used to kissing Finn so that shouldn't matter. She wishes for fireworks, but they don't come.

She emails Santana because she can't email Quinn. They were almost friends by the end of last year, and they're Facebook friends now. True that neither of them have ventured past liking a few posts, but she knows that Santana isn't really happy at Louisville. Rachel keeps it light, saying very little about herself, but being certain to ask Santana the appropriate questions in order to relay the appearance of genuine interest. It isn't until the last paragraph that Rachel casually asks Santana if she's heard from Quinn.

The answering email is full of snark and familiar insults, but there's not even one mention of Quinn. Santana does suggest that the next time Rachel feels the need to ramble on about nothing in particular, she might as well call and save Santana the eye-strain. _**I'm already used to tuning out your annoying voice**_, she types.

Five days later, Quinn finally contacts her again.

_**Congratulations on your Winter Showcase. I told you that you were meant to be in New York. I'm still not ready, but I'm getting there. Wishing you a Happy Hanukkah. ~Q**_

Rachel saves the text, and then she risks replying with a simple, _**Thank you. Merry Christmas. ~R **_

She goes out with Brody once before winter break. He takes her to dinner, and they go ice skating at Wollman Rink in Central Park. It's fun and easy, and it keeps her mind off of other things. She's getting used to kissing Brody—it still doesn't knock her socks off or make her heart feel full, but she likes him well enough.

Rachel and her dads had made plans months ago to take the Rosie O'Donnell gay holiday cruise. Rachel used to go with them all the time when she was younger, but she hasn't been on one in years. She's excited to spend time with them, but being stuck on the ship for two weeks is bothering her for reasons that she can't articulate—although she is looking forward to the Jesse Tyler Ferguson look alike contest. Maybe it's because she's meeting her dads here in New York, where the ship departs, and thanks to her last phone call with Santana (who actually seems to appreciate the effort to improve their friendship), Rachel knows that Quinn is planning to spend her holidays in Lima, but since Rachel and her dads won't be there, there won't even be a chance for them to accidentally run into one another over the holidays.

The cruise is both wonderful and terrible. Rachel is surrounded by happy couples and families of every sexuality and gender identity. She's happy enough to be there with her dads, but part of her feels more lost and alone than she ever has before. Her eyes keep straying to the women who are openly holding hands and kissing one another, and her mind keeps wandering to Quinn. She knows it's only because of what happened between them—the knowledge that she's been with a woman in a sexual way (though she's remembered enough by now to be relatively certain that there wasn't technically any penetration involved, even if there were mutual orgasms). Rachel isn't attracted to any of the women who wink and smile at her suggestively—not even the gorgeous blonde with the phenomenal body who asks her to dance during the disco party because she mistakenly assumes that Rachel has been staring at her all night. Rachel informs her that she's merely a straight ally and then dances with her anyway—just to be polite. It's...not unpleasant.

It's a relief to go home to her apartment in New York. Two days before her classes resume, she's browsing through the upcoming auditions that NYADA posts on their website for both on and off campus productions when her phone buzzes to life with the melody of _Keep Holding On_, and Rachel's heart stops. She nearly dumps her laptop onto the floor in her haste to answer her phone, fumbling with the screen until she finally manages to accept the call. "Hello," she answers breathlessly.

"_Hi, Rachel,"_ Quinn says softly through the line after clearing her throat.

"Quinn, hi. It's so good to hear your voice," she says earnestly, cradling the phone closer to her ear as she shifts back on the futon. "How are you? How was your holiday?"

"_Good. I'm," _there's a hesitation, and Rachel can perfectly imagine the wistful expression on Quinn's face before she says, _"good."_

Rachel closes her eyes, biting into her lips before she admits, "I've really missed you."

"_Yeah. I...I don't really know why I'm calling, to be honest. It's still kind of hard to hear your voice."_

"Oh," Rachel responds dejectedly.

_"But apparently, it's harder to not hear it,"_ Quinn admits softly.

Rachel's breath hitches. "Oh."

"_I've been thinking a lot about everything. It wasn't exactly fair of me to drop my...feelings on you when I knew how much you'd had to drink and then expect you to not to freak out."_

Rachel shakes her head in denial, even though Quinn can't see her. "No, Quinn, it wasn't your fault."

"_I didn't say it was,"_ Quinn counters, mild amusement evident in her tone, _"but obviously I had unreasonable expectations regarding what happened, and while I did need to distance myself from you for my own sanity, I'm sorry that it hurt you."_

"Apology accepted," Rachel says quickly.

There's a light chuckle on the other end of the phone. _"You still do that too easily, you know?"_

There's a flutter in Rachel's belly. "I don't have any other choice with you."

"_See, you can't," _Quinn begins to say, pausing to take an audible breath. _"Rachel, look, I want to be your friend, but you have to stop treating me like I'm...I don't know...some compass you can use to measure your success. I hate feeling like you have me on this pedestal. It messes with my head, and...and my heart."_ Her voice trembles a little at the end, and Rachel digs her nails into her own thigh. She hates the idea that Quinn might be crying.

"It's not like that," Rachel argues gently. "I...I care about you, Quinn. What's wrong with me thinking that you're a wonderful person with so many incredible things to offer?"

"_Nothing, but God, Rachel, sometimes you just send me so many mixed signals, and I can't deal with those anymore. If you want to be my friend, then be my friend, but please stop telling me how wonderful I am when you don't mean it the way I want."_

"The way you want," Rachel repeats, honing in on the last part of Quinn's speech. "I thought you were dating someone."

"_We're not talking about that," _Quinn tells her sharply.

Rachel frowns. "But..."

"_Rachel,"_ Quinn cuts her off sternly. _"Look, let's just take this slow, okay? I do miss you, and I want to know how you're doing with school and your auditions without having to go through Santana."_

"You ask Santana about me?" Rachel wants to know, cursing the girl under her breath—prying information about Quinn out of Santana is harder than getting Kurt away from Saks Fifth Avenue.

Quinn ignores the question._ "But I still don't want to talk about who you're dating or who I'm dating. Do you...do you think we can do that?"_

Rachel bites into her lip, because she really, really wants to say something about Quinn's professor, but she doesn't want to torpedo their progress right away, so she sighs and says, "Yes. Yes, absolutely."

_"Good. That's good,_" Quinn says, obviously relieved._ "Look, I have to go, but we'll talk again soon, okay?"_

"O-okay," Rachel agrees, and then Quinn is saying goodbye, and Rachel mindlessly echoes her. She cradles the phone against her chest and smiles because Quinn is talking to her again. She's in such a good mood for the rest of the day that Kurt asks her if she's gotten into their wine stash again. She giggles and kisses his cheek before dancing into her bedroom.

_xx_

Things with Quinn progress slowly. They email back and forth, but the exchanges are mostly focused on their classes, or impersonal anecdotes about their respective days. Rachel lets Quinn set the pace because she knows it's what Quinn needs, but that doesn't stop her from wrestling a few personal details out of her weekly phone call with Santana. Apparently, Santana's misery over finding out how serious Brittany and Sam have gotten has left a few holes in her defenses, and Rachel is able to stealthily manipulate the conversation in order to ascertain that Quinn is no longer seeing her creepy professor, but that she's been, quote-unquote, serial dating. Rachel hates that term—even more when Kurt points out that Quinn is young and single and entitled to date however many people she wants.

Conversely, things with Brody progress quickly, and one night in late January, they're in her bedroom, and Kurt is out with his friend Adam, and Brody is on top of her, kissing her and letting his hands wander her body. It's nice, but...

"_Wait…wait," Rachel begged against Quinn's lips._

_"Hmm, what?" Quinn muttered, absently chasing her mouth._

_Rachel clumsily shuffled backwards, pulling her hands away from Quinn's body in order to attack the button of her own jeans. "Too many clothes. We…we should take some off." Beside her, Quinn whimpered and tightened her hand on Rachel's thigh. Rachel giggled, shaking her head. "Just…just my pants…and…and your skirt. It's all twisty," she complained, nodding toward the bunched material._

_Quinn hummed her agreement and reached around to undo her zipper. She shimmied out of the skirt and tossed it across the room before Rachel had even managed to work her jeans down over her hips. Rachel's hands stilled as her eyes fastened onto creamy, muscled legs, and then she pushed clumsily at the material of her stupid, too-tight jeans and growled in frustration. Quinn laughed and crawled over her, gripped the denim in her hands, and pulled them down over Rachel's legs until her bare legs were free. Quinn carelessly dropped the jeans off the side of the bed and licked her lips. "Your legs should be illegal," she mused reverently as she brushed her fingers over Rachel's calves, slowly drawing little circles over the skin as she worked her way toward Rachel's thighs._

_"Nope...yours should," Rachel argued dumbly as she reached for Quinn. She twisted her fingers into Quinn's shirt and pulled her up, wrapping her legs around Quinn's waist as Quinn slid up her body and settled her weight on top of Rachel. "You make me so hot," Rachel murmured, pushing her hands under Quinn's shirt on a quest to feel as much of her skin as she could. Under the shirt, over the bra—that was the rule. Rachel didn't know how she knew that, but she was pretty sure she had it right. She had to follow the rules, after all._

_Quinn smirked before she dipped her head and dragged her lips across Rachel's throat. "How hot?"_

"_Hotter…uh," she groaned when Quinn nipped beneath her jaw, "hotter than…than anything," Rachel gasped out between ragged breaths, "or anyone," she groaned, mindlessly rocking her hips up against Quinn. "I want you so much."_

"Quinn," Rachel whispers, eyelids fluttering against the memory of the last time she'd had someone in this bed with her.

Brody stops, lifting his head in confusion. "What did you say?"

Rachel digs her nails into his shoulders, eyes widening in horror. She can't be thinking about that now. She has a gorgeous, sexy, _aroused _man on top of her, and she's young and single and _straight_.

"N-nothing," she stammers, determinedly cupping her hand around his neck and pulling him back down for another kiss. His hand slips to her skirt, loosening the zipper. Rachel pulls her mouth away from him and stares up into his eyes, waging a silent war in her mind before she finally makes a decision. "Do you have a condom?"

He grins and nods, and Rachel pushes Quinn out of her thoughts. Much later, after Brody quietly slips out of the apartment, Rachel cries herself to sleep.

_xx_

Rachel doesn't tell Quinn about what happened with Brody. Even if Quinn was at the point where their romantic lives were allowed back on the list of acceptable conversation topics, Rachel wouldn't be able to tell her about this. Quinn's last email is sitting unopened in Rachel's inbox, and she can't bring herself to read it, although she doesn't completely understand why. She almost feels like she's somehow betrayed Quinn, but that's completely ridiculous because they aren't anything other than friends—who'd kind of had sex once.

Instead, she gets insecure over Brody standing her up the next day because she's certain that the sex was just awful and now he's blowing her off—and who can blame him? Her heart wasn't really in it, and neither was her body, but then he's knocking on her door, and he says all the right things, and Rachel wants this to work. She wants it because it can't work with Quinn. So when Brody mentions moving closer to Bushwick in order to see her more, Rachel spontaneously asks him to move in with her and Kurt.

Kurt isn't happy, and he tells her. "You have to stop this, Rachel," he growls, staring her down like an angry parent.

"Stop what?"

"You know exactly what," he warns, waving his hand around in agitation. "You're throwing yourself at Brody like he's a Valentino gown on the sale rack at a thrift shop."

Rachel bristles, crossing her arms defensively. "That isn't true."

"You asked him to move in with you the day after you had sex for the first time."

She shrugs, darting her eyes away. "It's more practical than him renting a new apartment."

"Practical would be Brody staying at his dorm and you dealing with the fact that every major development in your relationship with him has been reactionary to something Quinn Fabray has done to upset you."

Rachel flinches as his words hit home, and then she unfolds her arms and waves an angry finger in his face. "This has nothing to do with Quinn."

Kurt visibly clenches his jaw, crossing his own arms and shaking his head. "Rachel, sweetie, I've tried not to push the issue. I've been quietly supportive of you these last few months and let you deal with your…issues in your own time, but I draw the line when that involves you shacking up with your rebound guy in _our_ apartment."

"I thought you liked Brody. You encouraged me to go for it with him," she reminds him.

"I do like him," Kurt concedes, "but that doesn't mean I want to share a bathroom and an apartment with him. Especially when we don't have any actual doors on our bedrooms," he says wryly. "I just thought you needed to get over Finn."

Rachel tips her chin up defiantly. "Well, I am."

Kurt sighs, taking Rachel's hand lightly. "But you're obviously not over Quinn."

She jerks her hand away. "I don't need to be _over_ Quinn. We were never together."

"You were together enough for mutual orgasms and a three-month gay panic."

"This is not a gay panic!" Rachel denies hotly, the accusation turning her stomach sour. "I'm not gay panicking. To have a gay panic you have to be _gay_. I'm not."

Kurt purses his lips and narrows his eyes as he stares her down. "You're also not exactly straight as an arrow," he points out haughtily.

Rachel stumbles back a step, dragging her hands through her hair. She feels dizzy, a little shaky, and sick to her stomach. "Why are you doing this?" she asks in a broken voice. "I thought you understood. What happened with Quinn was…it was a stupid, drunken mistake that nearly cost me a friend that I'm still trying to make things right with."

Kurt pushes a hand through his own hair. "Rachel. You have to know that faking domestic bliss with Brody won't magically fix your increasingly ambiguous sexuality."

"Stop saying that," she begs in desperation, feeling her eyes well with tears. "I'm not gay."

He takes a deep breath, shaking his head and reaching for her hand again. Rachel tries to back away and shrug him off, but he's persistent, and he carefully leads her to the futon where they both sit down. He turns her toward him, even though she stubbornly refuses to meet his eyes, and takes both her hands in his. "Sweetie, I hate doing this. I swore to myself that I would never force anyone out of the closet before they were ready, but watching you repeatedly bang your head against the inside of the door is just too painful." Rachel shakes her head, not wanting to listen to him. She tries to pull her hands back, but he holds tight.

"As much as this pains me to admit, because two years ago I was very much convinced otherwise, apparently bisexuality does exist," he tells her with a self-deprecating grin. "At least, that's what Brittany repeatedly preached to me during her ill-fated tenure as my campaign manager. And frankly, watching you tear yourself apart over Quinn Fabray is proof enough for me that sexuality isn't as black or white as I used to believe."

"Mine is," she stubbornly insists, finally freeing her hands, only to angrily brush at a stray tear. "I have a life plan, Kurt. And yeah, m-maybe it's been slightly altered from when I was fifteen, and the guy that I initially pictured standing beside me on the red carpet isn't there anymore. And maybe I won't have the husband, two Tonys, a Grammy, and an Emmy by the time I'm twenty-five, but all of those things are still going to happen," she insists. She doesn't know what order she'll get them in or when she'll meet her perfect leading man, but she hasn't lost faith in those things.

"I'm going to be a star, and…and my memoir will tell an inspirational tale of triumph about a girl who overcame adversity, and…and criticism, and growing up as the daughter of two gay men in a small town where everyone thought that she was just some Broadway-obsessed freak," she spits bitterly, "but still went on to have an amazing, enviable life with an equally amazing career and a…a loving, stable marriage."

"With a man," Kurt finishes flatly, understanding flashing in his eyes.

Rachel's shoulders tense, and she straightens her posture. "Yes, okay? With a man," she defends. "What's so wrong with that? Why shouldn't I be able to have something normal for once? Something I don't have to justify at every turn? Something that won't automatically create yet another huge obstacle in the way of my dreams," she rambles, holding her hands out. "Because it _would_, Kurt. You _know_ it would. It...it wouldn't matter how gorgeous Quinn Fabray might look next to me on a red carpet," she chokes out, closing her eyes against the stunningly brilliant picture of it in her mind, "or how she's always believed in me with unwavering certainty, or how she just understands my craziness without having to ask, or what a wonderful woman she is, because she _is_ a woman," Rachel cries, feeling a desperate hysteria work through her body until she's trembling with it. "We'll always have to defend our relationship against stupid, homophobic assholes who…who think that there's something wrong with us...that we're some kind of abomination against their God...just because we fell in love with each other."

Kurt's breath hitches a bit. "Did you?"

Rachel sniffles, brushing at her wet cheeks. "W-what?"

"Fall in love?" he asks gently.

Rachel stiffens, reflexively shaking her head. "N-no. I…we...oh God," she whimpers as she fully realizes what she's said.

She can still see the vision of Quinn standing beside her on that red carpet so clearly, wearing a green dress—to match her eyes—with her hair swept up and diamond earrings dangling from her delicate, elfin ears. She's smiling that smile—the wide, genuine one that she'd worn that Sunday morning—and her fingers are entwined so comfortably with Rachel's as she listens intently to her talk about whatever project she's nominated for with Ryan Seacrest—and later they'll laugh in private about Quinn's unfortunate tattoo. Rachel is hit with a wave of longing unlike anything she's ever felt before. What's even more terrifying is that she can see Quinn just as clearly in the front row of the theater at Rachel's Broadway premiere, or dancing around Rachel in their kitchen as she slaps her hands away from any of the important cooking tasks, or cuddled in bed with Rachel on a lazy Saturday as they trade sweet and sensual kisses.

"Oh, God," she whispers in horror, eyes flying to Kurt's face, "I…I think I'm in love with Quinn."

Kurt lightly rests his hands on her biceps and offers an encouraging smile. "I know, sweetie."

"It's not fair," she complains, squeezing her eyes shut and collapsing into Kurt's arms as her own emotions begin to overwhelm her. He holds her tightly as she sniffles against his shoulder. "It's not. I didn't want this."

"We don't always get what we want."

"Please don't start singing," she begs, twisting her fingers into the fabric of his shirt.

"I would never," he promises with laughter in his voice, "but in this case, it could be considered fairly apropos. Perhaps you've finally found what you need."

The truth of it makes her head spin—like she's been wearing blinders for years, but suddenly she's seeing the world with an unobstructed view for the first time and it's too much to take in all at once. "But Quinn doesn't need _me._ And even if...even if she wanted me before, she's moved on, first with her stupid professor, and now who even knows?" Rachel whines pathetically. "She's probably dating dozens of rich, Yale men…or…or women. _Everyone_ wants Quinn."

_I want Quinn_, she thinks, still stunned by the revelation.

"Maybe you should talk to her," Kurt suggests.

Rachel lifts her head, drying her eyes with the backs of her fingers. "You say that like I haven't been trying."

Kurt tilts his chin down, raising an eyebrow. "But you've been saying the wrong things, Rachel."

Rachel considers this, but her relationship with Quinn is still on shaky ground, and she doesn't know how to get them from where they are as email buddies who have only spoken on the phone twice in the last month—and never about anything really intimate—to a confession of newly discovered (or newly admitted) feelings on Rachel's behalf. And that's not even dealing with the fact that Rachel may be willing to admit that she loves Quinn, but it doesn't change any of the reasons why she's terrified to be _with_ Quinn. She still doesn't want to become a statistic to be used as proof for the nurture versus nature argument on why gay couples shouldn't have children, and she doesn't want to jeopardize her career before she's even gotten it off the ground. She's fully aware of how selfish that is—but that doesn't make her any better equipped to suppress her most basic instincts.

She doesn't talk to Quinn—at least not about her feelings. She does finally open that email that she's been neglecting, smiling when she sees the picture that Quinn has attached of a stuffed bulldog, wearing a blue and white sweater and sitting on a snow-covered stone ledge somewhere on the wintery Yale campus. Apparently, Quinn is going a little crazy from battling the New Haven weather.

Rachel manages to type another superficial email—even if she has to delete entire paragraphs filled with long, emotional confessions before she sends it. She also breaks up with Brody—or, well, breaks it off, since they weren't technically dating. Of course he asks why, but she only tells him. "I'm not in love with you, and I guess I'm just not cut out for casual sex."

He's surprisingly understanding—or maybe Rachel shouldn't be surprised at all considering Brody's casual attitude about relationships—and he tells her that they can still be friends. And as her friend, he advises her to agree to the student film in which she's been offered a part, even though it requires her to go topless.

Kurt is appalled. "Rachel is a serious actress, Brody. She doesn't do nudity.²"

Brody shrugs. "As performers, that's a question that we're all gonna have to face. If you want to win an Oscar, you have to show your boobs," he tells Rachel. "Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connolly, Kathy Bates.²"

It's an oddly compelling argument, and in light of Rachel's current crisis of sexual awakening versus career aspirations, it's enough to tip her into agreement—against Kurt's advisement. He's still a little miffed that she hasn't taken his advice to talk to Quinn.

"So now, instead of Brody, you're going to throw yourself at any tacky opportunity to become a star while you pretend that you're not in love with Quinn," he accuses after Brody leaves with the small box of personal items that he'd left scattered through their apartment during their brief courtship.

Rachel scowls at him. "I'm not pretending anything, Kurt. This has nothing to do with how I feel about Quinn. It's a legitimate opportunity to...to hone my acting technique and step outside of my comfort zone."

"By doing a porno?" he asks incredulously.

"It's not a porno," she defends. "It's a good script," well, a decent script—okay a passably decent script—but she'll be the star of an actual film that might even go to Sundance or something. "I'm going to do it," she tells him, getting up from the table, "with or without your support.²"

Two days later, Rachel is in the middle of rehearsals for the film. She still isn't decided about Quinn. She's on her way back to the apartment after getting waylaid by her eccentric neighbor, and she's already venting before she even gets the door open. "Kurt, the hipster downstairs with the curly-cue mustache wants to borrow your Russian hat.²"

She sees Quinn immediately, standing just inside the apartment and looking typically beautiful in her burgundy dress with her hands shoved into the pockets of the skirt. She's smiling a little nervously, but she _is_ smiling, and Rachel instantly smiles back. She's just so happy to see Quinn. When she'd imagined this moment, she'd half-expected to burst into tears or to stutter awkwardly, but all she feels is elation. "Oh, my God," she trills, "what are you doing here?²"

Quinn shifts her weight anxiously. "Kurt called begging me to do an emergency intervention.²"

Rachel's smile slips away. "On who?²"

"You,²" Quinn says with a tentative half-smile.

Annoyance bubbles up inside Rachel at Kurt's interference, but then she watches Quinn's smile slowly fade just before she sucks her lower lip into her mouth and begins to worry it—and now that expected awkwardness is settling in. Rachel turns around and slides the door closed, taking a deep breath and steeling her nerves before she faces Quinn again. "W-what exactly did he tell you?" she asks worriedly.

Quinn shakes her head, her face serious. "Rachel, you can't do a nude scene.²"

Rachel doesn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed that Quinn is here about that and not..._them_. "It's not a nude scene," she corrects, stepping past Quinn toward the living room. "It's just a topless scene.²"

"It's the same thing," Quinn argues, following behind her. Rachel huffs, sitting down in Kurt's chair—being on the futon next to Quinn would be inviting too many memories that she's not quite prepared to discuss yet. Quinn steps past her, pulling her hands from her pockets and tucking the loose skirt of her dress daintily under her as she sits. "It's you exposing your...your body," she stutters with a pretty blush as she glances to the floor, "on film for anyone to see."

Rachel fidgets in her chair, playing with the hem of her skirt. Her eyes dart to Quinn and then away, in a continuous cycle. She finds that she's having as much difficulty looking _at_ Quinn as she is looking_ away _from her. "A lot of women find it empowering to be naked on film,²" she argues weakly.

"It's a _student _film, Rachel," Quinn reminds her in exasperation, holding out her hand in emphasis. "It's hardly going to win you an Oscar, and if it turns out to be awful, then it's always going to be there to embarrass you in every interview you'll ever give, and it will probably be uploaded to some online fansite for millions to watch and download and create gifs from...just like Santana's sex tape," she says with an expression of mild distaste. "You will never, ever get away from it."

Rachel crosses her arms over her breasts uncomfortably, biting her lip. She's actually seen Santana's sex tape—or parts of it—and it wasn't pretty. Well, objectively, it was kind of pret...no, that isn't the point. "I appreciate that you came all the way here to be the angel on my shoulder, despite our," she trails off searching for the right word, and then offers an apologetic smile when she sees how tense Quinn has suddenly become. "But it wasn't fair of Kurt to ask you to do this. I'm a big girl, and I can make my own decisions."

Quinn curls her hands around the edge of the futon and leans forward. "Look, I care about you so much," Quinn says, stressing the words, "and I only have your best interests in mind. Please don't do it,²" she begs with an odd hitch in her voice. Her eyes are sparkling green, and the emotion shining in them is so unmistakably _Quinn_ that Rachel wonders once again how the hell she could have missed this for so long.

She takes a deep breath, breaking eye contact and glancing down at her hands. "Do you mean that? You care about me?

Quinn shakes her head and sighs heavily, sounding suddenly tired when she says, "You know I do, Rachel. I wouldn't be here if I didn't." She smiles thinly when Rachel looks at her and shrugs. "Kurt cares about you too, obviously."

Rachel nods. "And I'm grateful for that, but your good opinion has always been so important to me."

Quinn's eyebrow arches and her lips thin, and then she nods sharply, muttering, "Yeah, I know."

"No," Rachel says softly, "no, I don't think you do."

"Look, Rachel. I'm really trying to be your friend again," Quinn says continuing to stare at some spot over Rachel's shoulder. "The last few months have been good for me, more or less, and you and I are finally getting our feet back on solid ground. Coming here this weekend to talk you down from stripping for your pervy classmates is about as much as I think I can take right now." Her shoulders rise and fall on a silent huff, and she finally meets Rachel's intent gaze. "I'm really not up for rehashing my unenviable position as your Holy Grail of Friendship."

Rachel grins a little despite herself, tipping her head to the side. "You're not my Holy Grail of anything, Quinn," she says, and even as she does, she knows it's not entirely the truth—but it certainly isn't merely _friendship_ anymore.

Quinn rolls her eyes. "Right. Sorry. What's the Jewish equivalent?"

Rachel bites her lip as her eyes caress Quinn's familiar face, and her heart flutters knowingly. Her mouth twitches into a trembling smile. "Bashert," she whispers shyly.

Quinn's left eyebrow arches. "Okay, if you say so," she drawls, obviously clueless.

"You know, you might have been right," Rachel says carefully, "just a little bit. I did envy you in high school." Rachel notices the muscle in Quinn's jaw jump at her admission, so she's quick to add, "At least for a while. Maybe I did originally set a goal to win you over. I wanted you to respect me, and…and then I wanted you to _like_ me. And for a long time I didn't understand why I cared so much. I mean, you were awful to me at first."

Pained regret flashes in Quinn's eyes, and she chokes out, "Rachel..."

"No," Rachel stops her, holding up a hand. "You've apologized for that, and I've apologized for some of the unkind things that I did to you, or regarding you." Rachel presses her palms down on her thighs and leans forward in her chair. "But despite all of that, I always wanted to know where you were or _how_ you were or what you thought," she admits with a wry smile. She inhales deeply, pulling in the mild scent of citrus and willing it to calm her nerves. This is the scary part—the part where she risks this tentative reunion and puts her own heart and future on the line. "I used to think that was because you were everything I wanted to be, but Quinn," she pauses, voice growing soft around the cherished name as she looks as deeply as she can into Quinn's eyes, "you're everything I want to _have_."

Quinn blinks, her lips pulling down at the corners and a little furrow forming between her eyebrows. "I don't understand," she finally mumbles.

Rachel moistens her lips. "Do you know what bashert means?" she asks, smiling a little when Quinn shakes her head. "Soulmate."

It takes a second for Quinn to process what Rachel is saying, and when she does, her breath catches, her eyes grow wide, and her knuckles turn white from her grip on the cushion. And then she scowls, shaking her head angrily. "No, Rachel. You don't get to do this now. Not when you've spent the last three months swearing that I was a drunken mistake and that you only want to be my _friend_," she spits, pushing up from the futon and pacing across the floor.

Rachel's stomach bottoms out, and she scrambles up from the chair, afraid that Quinn is going to walk out again. "I'm so sorry that I hurt you, Quinn. I panicked, okay?" she pleads, chasing after Quinn until she's standing between her and the door. She experiences a wicked sense of déjà vu, but it's nothing compared to the way she feels when she sees the tear trickling down over Quinn's cheek.

"I panicked," she repeats more calmly, holding out a hand in supplication. "I love my dads _so much_, and I'm _so_ proud to be their daughter, but they've replaced the front window of our house forty-seven times because it's been broken at least twice a year since they moved to Lima." Quinn's brows furrow even more, and her lips part silently, but she's stopped looking like she's going to leave, so Rachel drags in a ragged breath and holds her gaze.

"Our garage door was spray painted with the word "faggots" three times that I know of. When I was six, they took me shopping at the mall for a new dress for my birthday, and I was walking between them, holding both their hands, and some woman said all these horrible things to us...to me...and she...she spit on me. Right there in the middle of the store," Rachel recalls with a broken sob. Quinn gasps, and she reaches out to touch Rachel's arm without thinking. Rachel presses her hand over Quinn's and closes her eyes in gratitude.

"I grew up hearing so many awful, hateful words, Quinn, and when I was old enough to understand what those words meant, I learned words like homophobic and ACLU. Please don't misunderstand...my dads were amazing," she says with a sad smile. "They kept as much of that ugliness from me as they possibly could, but every so often, I'd hear my daddy crying in my dad's arms over something or other they failed to protect me from. There were so many nights when I sat at my window and wished on the first star that I saw for our family to be safe and happy. Accepted," Rachel admits shamefully.

Quinn nods slowly, licking her lips as she drops her hand away from Rachel. "And if you're with a guy, you get to have that," she finally realizes. "Acceptance."

_Well, that sounds even worse when Quinn says it_, Rachel thinks gloomily. "I _know_ it's not any kind of excuse for...for how I've been acting. I just wanted one thing about my life to be _easy_. And it _was_, Quinn. It was so easy to love Finn," Rachel says, watching Quinn huff and turn away just enough that she doesn't have to meet Rachel's eyes. "And I did love him. And I...I kind of had a thing with Brody," she confesses quickly.

"I don't want to hear this," Quinn hisses, scowling at her.

"But it's over now," Rachel rambles on, "because I don't love him and I...I can't keep using him as a way to hide from the truth. I'm not gay," she repeats for what feels like the hundredth time, "but I can't stop thinking about you, Quinn. I remember almost everything about that night, and I...I know that I felt something. No," Rachel amends quickly, catching Quinn's glistening eyes. "No, I felt _everything_. And it terrifies me."

Another tear escapes from the corner of Quinn's eye, and she presses a trembling hand to her throat. Rachel whimpers at the sight. She's making such a mess of this, and she crosses her arm over her stomach and curls her hand around her upper arm, digging her nails into the skin as she battles her own tears.

"I know this isn't fair to you, and that you...you've moved on, but I needed to tell you. I need you to know that it wasn't a mistake, or...or an experiment. It was real and scary and life-altering, and I did everything wrong trying to shove all of these emotions back into the nice, safe box they were hiding in, but I can't anymore," she admits, holding out her hands again and pleading with Quinn through her eyes. "You were right, Quinn. It wasn't just the alcohol. It was us...you and me," Rachel says with a sad smile, watching the colors play in Quinn's eyes as they roam over Rachel's face. "It's always been you and me. So even if I'm too late, at least you know that...that I know exactly what I lost," and Quinn sucks in a sharp breath, moving closer as Rachel confesses, "and there will never be a day when I don't regret that I let you walk away instead of just grabbing onto you with both hands and never letting..."

Her last word gets lost in Quinn's mouth—Quinn does have a habit of catching her by surprise—and Rachel sighs against the softness of those perfect lips as they coax her to surrender. Quinn's fingers sink into Rachel's hair, and she wraps her arms around Quinn's waist, pressing against her. It's different sober—so much better—and Rachel feels something inside of her finally settle into its proper place as so many vivid colors explode in front of her eyes. She tugs Quinn's body closer, slipping her hands over the small of Quinn's back while the kiss slowly grows more sensual.

Quinn brushes her tongue along Rachel's lower lip before giving it a playful nip. Rachel moans softly, pulling back just enough to gaze up into those beautiful eyes. "Quinn?"

"Less talking," Quinn murmurs, running one hand down Rachel's back and hugging her tightly, "more grabbing on with both hands and never letting me go."

"I can do that," Rachel whispers, her lips nearly touching Quinn's with every word, and then they're touching in earnest, and Rachel never wants to stop kissing Quinn—except, "So just to clarify," Rachel says after reluctantly separating their mouths, "this is you telling me that I'm not too late."

Quinn's eyes glisten with emotion, and she shakes her head, breathing out, "No," and for a moment, Rachel's heart sinks, but then Quinn lifts it back up and makes it soar when she says, "this is me telling you that I'm in love with you." Quinn nervously moistens her lips and smiles a little fearfully. "You don't have to say it back."

Rachel shakes her head, cupping Quinn's cheek reverently. "I really think I do," she says breathlessly. "I think I'm still falling, but," she brushes her thumb across Quinn's lower lip, grinning up at her. "I love you, Quinn."

She watches Quinn's smile blossom into one that's wide and completely unguarded, and her eyes begin to twinkle with carefree happiness. "You and your constant talking," she teases playfully.

Rachel laughs, running her fingers along Quinn's jaw and down her throat. "I'd promise you that my lips are sealed, but," she trails off suggestively, arching her own eyebrow, and Quinn joyfully takes the hint, capturing Rachel's lips in a kiss that promises new beginnings.

Rachel sinks into Quinn and lets all of her fear melt away—at least for the moment—as she focuses everything in her on the woman in her arms. This isn't anything that she ever expected, and Quinn isn't the person that she would have chosen, but she's starting to understand that the things you don't plan are the ones that end up meaning the most—and the people who find their way into your life when you least expect them are there for a reason. After everything that she and Quinn have been through—together and apart—from the moment that they met, Rachel finally feels like they're right where they're meant to be.

* * *

¹_Glee 4x07, Thanksgiving  
_²_Glee __4x12, Naked_

* * *

**Author's Note: **This story was my attempt to explore the Rachel Berry that we don't often see in Faberry stories - the one who doesn't automatically realize her feelings for Quinn the moment they kiss, and who isn't immediately okay with the belief in her complete heterosexuality being suddenly challenged. It was difficult to write her so close to canon, and I hope I did this particular journey justice. If you made it this far, thank you for reading.


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